"The Marquise". Oxford Playhouse
Every playwright has their unloved child. Shakespeare has Timon of Athens . Arthur Miller has After the Fall . And Noël Coward has The Marquise . For most of the last century it has lurked in the shadows cast by Private Lives , Hay Fever and Present Laughter , emerging only occasionally to remind audiences that even Coward’s cast-offs are more entertaining than many writers’ masterpieces. But this production does more than dust off an old family heirloom. The Marquise , unusually for Coward, is set in the distant past of France 1735. Its characters, all Comtes and Marquis, are (in prior versions) bedecked in wigs, rouge and massive sleeves. All this is so alien for Coward that it’s the setting, rather than the play itself, that has consigned The Marquise to the maestro’s marginalia. Director Philip Wilson has recognised this. He’s seen that the dialogue is every bit as modern, English and risqué as Coward’s better-loved comedies. So he’s transported the play to the 1930s. And, with m...