Easy Virtue review – Trevor Nunn recreates Noel Coward’s divorce drama in style | stage

‘WWhat’s the use of arguing and bickering like that?” a husband asks his wife in easy virtue. “It leads nowhere.” He’s wrong, of course: it’s the kind of verbal jousting and escalating anger that would catapult 25-year-old Noel Coward to stardom.

Audiences may not know this early work, but in Trevor Nunn’s lavish new production they will know exactly where they stand. Simon Higlett’s lavish drawing room set comes complete with a marble staircase for somber exits and dramatic entrances, and his 1920s outfits are accompanied by some of the best finger waves you’ll see outside of Strictly’s Charleston week.

To kick off this morality drama, there’s Greta Scacchi, who is positively baffled and horrified when the matriarch discovers that her son has married a divorcee. Meanwhile, Alice Orr-Ewing’s Larita lands into her new family with the cool air of a aviator: sunglasses propped on her head, a scarf behind her, and she drops her bag to the ground in a gesture that’s half a curtsey and half a statement of intent.

Stifled by rural life, cared for by an overbearing sister-in-law and intensely disliked by another, Laretta emerges as a modern heroine, as if someone had retooled Poulter from Nancy Mitford’s novels as Ibsen’s hero. (“My life is my life,” she declares at one point.) When the sniping, backbiting and passive-aggression finally erupt, there’s a great monologue in the middle, though Coward doesn’t neglect the other characters in his large cast, from the surprisingly liberal father-in-law (an understated Michael Praed) to the calculating ex-girlfriend whose presence helps explore the play’s ideas about the “ugly intimacy” of marriage.

The comedy, which lies in the social awkwardness of the D-word, may not fare so well today, but the psychological honesty and pathos are timeless. The coward’s presence isn’t just there to pierce through hypocrisy and helplessness—it’s a cover for heartbreak and loneliness. “Women of my type are very tired in love,” Larita admits. “We hammer at it, tooth and nail, until it bends and deforms.” You can’t help but think about Amanda’s private life, which will be written five years later. In this production, we see Coward’s searing emotional vision truly on fire.