I got all dressed up to see Joan, I must confess: Nothing flashy, of course—one doesn’t confront a sex kitten on her own turf—but I did go out of my way. I figured that the Joan Collins “Private Lives” was going to be one of those events which are really all about how a girl looks. If the truth be known, I was having one of my dog days, and would have preferred to stay at home. But then I thought of Joan, who posed for Playboy at fifty, and I thought that if she could make the effort, I could too. So I put on the purple jacket I hadn’t thought I’d ever find a use for and the shoes that make me look five inches taller than I am. There was nothing to be done about the hair.
If this “Private Lives”—currently at the Broadhurst, on the last leg of a Untied States tour—were about no more than how a girl looks, Joan would come through with flying colors. But, of course, the production is about more than looks. It’s about arranging your life so that, at an age when many women have long since given up, you are playing Amanda on Broadway in a production in which everything is just as you want it. It’s about making sure that the English actor who played Victor for you in the West End gets to appear in New York (despite the fact that any number of Americans could have played the role). And it’s about the actress who played Sybil in the West End—and won a Laurence Olivier Award for best supporting actress—not getting to appear here. Most especially, it’s about finding an Elyot (Simon Jones) who is at once so funny and so self-effacing that he can compensate for the weaknesses in your performance without ever eclipsing you.
In a play renowned for style, one would expect an actress renowned for glitz to fall flat on her face. Actually, Miss Collins does just fine as Amanda. She doesn’t reinvent the role, or anything, but she has her moments. And if her voice could be a little more variable and her timing a little sharper and her curtain call a little more gracious toward Mr. Jones, her co-star—well, what the hey?
So I won’t hear a word against Joan. All the same, the best thing about the production is unquestionably Mr. Jones, who really does reinvent the role of Elyot: he’s funny-adorable rather than funny-acerbic, as Noel Coward himself—one knows from recordings—was. What makes the evening a pleasure is that Mr. Jones finds so many different ways of being adorable, just as Edward Duke, on a smaller scale, finds so many different ways of being pompous in the role of Victor (which Olivier originated, incidentally). Jill Tasker, who plays Sybil, might have found more ways of being silly and irritating, but maybe there’s something in her contract about not being too good.
I wish there were more to say about the production—which was directed by Arvin Brown and has stylish sets and stylish costumes by Loren Sherman and William Ivey Long, respectively—but there isn’t. The play is still amusing, and Miss Collins, if not herself a jewel, has given herself the perfect setting.
Mimi Kramer
The New Yorker, March 2, 1992