An Americanized trio of romantic protagonists and a gay subtext made explicit are two reasons Odyssey Theatre Ensemble’s provocative but problematic staging of Noël Coward’s Design For Living is a far cry from the one Broadway audiences first discovered back in 1933.

Said to be based on Coward’s friendship with married theater legends Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who starred opposite the playwright/actor in the play’s New York debut, Design For Living introduces us to sophisticated interior decorator Gilda (Brooke Bundy), who like Cher, Beyoncé, and Madonna needs no last name, struggling artist Otto Sylvus (Garikayi Mutambirwa), who’s her current live-in lover, and the couple’s best friend Leo Mercuré (Kyle T. Hester), an aspiring playwright who’s just spent the night with Gilda (pronounced Jilda) in Leo’s and her Paris flat, thereby proving the axiom that when the cat’s away, the mice will bang like there’s no tomorrow.

Tomorrow does unfortunately come when Otto returns from New York the next morning and finds Gilda in her nightgown and Leo in his undies and himself with no other choice but to storm out the door and leave the freshly minted lovers to their post-coital bliss.

Flash forward eighteen months to the London flat now shared by Gilda and Leo, the latter beaming from the success of his latest play, but not for long, or at least not once he’s found Gilda and Otto fresh from frolicking in the proverbial hay, though Leo’s response to this hanky-panky is not exactly what you’d expect from a man who’s just been cuckolded by his bff.

It’s a romantic/sexual roundelay so provocative when written that London censors refused to let Design For Living open in the West End and Hollywood completely rewrote the plot when Fredric March, Gary Cooper, and Miriam Hopkins starred in its 1933 screen “adaptation.”

Not so the play’s recent revivals, which have made explicit what was previously only implicit, that like the real-life trio who inspired Coward’s play, it was actually Leo and Otto who had the hots for each other, and director Bart DeLorenzo pulls no punches as to where booze-fueled repressed homosexual urges can lead.

Less successful is the decision to have Bundy, Hester, and Mutambirwa play Gilda, Leo, and Otto with American accents.

Rather than making the threesome more accessible to a contemporary American audience (which was my initial impression), it ultimately doesn’t work to have lines like “It’s so dreadfully untidy” and “I shall yell! I shall yell like mad!” and “I gave way utterly” spoken with standard U.S. accents any more than it would if Tennessee Williams’ Big Daddy proclaimed “There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity!” without the requisite Mississippi drawl.

Notwithstanding, Bundy, Hester, and a particularly appealing Mutambirwa do generally impressive work embodying the three Coward sophisticates, though Hester’s tattoos prove an anachronistic and out-of-character distraction.

 A scene-stealing Andrew Elvis Miller gets to keep twit art dealer Ernest Friedman’s posh London accent intact and Sheelagh Cullen is a hoot as Gilda’s dotty Cockney maid Miss ‘odge, returning in New York sophisticate mode opposite Shireen Heidari and Max Pescherine (both fine) as young Manhattanites Henry and Helen Carver.

Frederica Nascimento’s set design, adorned with Otto’s abstract canvases, serves as a sleek, stylish alternative to a more detailed traditional set, and it has been impressively lit by Leigh Allen, with sound designer John Zalewski spicing up the play’s music soundtrack with contemporary and period Noël Coward covers.

Denise Blasor’s costumes are hit and miss. (Otto’s wardrobe is an eye-catching mix of color and panache, but Gilda’s early-Act Two number looks no more period than something you might grab off your local Macys rack and Leo’s stretched out tank top does no one any favors.)

Design For Living is produced for the Odyssey Theatre by Beth Hogan. Michael Lanham and Samantha Occhino are assistant directors. Jennifer Palumbo is stage manager. Casting is by Nicole Arbusto.

At the very least, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble’s Design For Living gives audiences the chance to discover a rarely revived Noël Coward gem and the fact that it dares to “go there” is a provocative plus. Minus the American accents, I’d be giving it a WOW!

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 South Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles. Through August 25. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 2:00. Also Wednesdays July 16 and August 7 at 8:00.
www.odysseytheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
July 6, 2024
Photos: Cooper Bates

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Noël Coward, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble