design for living

by Noël Coward
directed by William Addis

Driven by ambition and addled by sexual tension, Otto the painter, Leo the playwright and Gilda, the interior decorator can't live together and can't live apart.  Design for Living is Noël Coward's celebrated comedy about sex, love and fame that follows three young artists cavorting through London, Paris and New York in 1932.
Widely considered to be scandalous, when the play first appeared in 1932 it was promptly banned. Chic, sexy and provocative, and rich with Coward's impeccable dialogue, Design for Living was to become one of Coward’s great achievements, along Private Lives, Present Laughter, and Hay Fever. Bakerloo’s signature style of intelligent and thoughtful productions is a perfect match for this celebration of flair and wit.

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The actual facts are so simple.  I love you.  You love me.  I love Otto.  Otto loves you.  Otto loves me.  There now!  Start to unravel from there.
                                    -Design for Living

At the heart of all the witty, provocative, polished brilliance is a gorgeous simplicity.  Of course Coward's comic instincts told him that you can top high jinks only with silence and one sharp clean gesture.  But Design for Living, like all his best work, seems to be spun out of sheer, simple nothing.  Coward's plays actually are thin--but then, so was Fred Astaire.
                                     -David Ives

What Noel Coward and I had in common was that we were not interested in expressing ourselves, but in expressing objectively and as allusively as possible what was taking place in a given context.
                                     -Harold Prince

So I knock on the door
Take a step that is new
Never been here before
Is there anyone else here too
In love with beauty
Playing all of the games
Who thinks three's company
Is there anyone else who wears slightly mysterious brusies
I don't what what is is
                                  -Rufus Wainwright

I twist like a corkscrew, the sweetness rising
I drink from the bottle weeping
Why won't you last?
Why can't you last?
So I will walk without care,
beat my snare
Look like a man who means business
Go to all the poshest places
with their familiar faces
Terminate all signs of weakness
                                  Rufus Wainwright