First performed in 1924, The Vortex launched Noël Coward’s career as an actor and playwright. The play is centered on Florence, a vivacious socialite who refuses to age gracefully, cheating on her husband with a young cad and clinging on to past glories through her small circle of hangers on. But the key draw in this play is Florence’s complicated relationship with her 24-year-old son, a meaty and quite scandalous role played in the original productions by Coward.Nearly a century later, Coward’s unusually dark play is now being performed at the Jubilee Hall in Singapore and it still packs a punch with its critique of a hedonistic society. It offers the two leads, Alex Spinney as Nicki and Jane Seymour as Florence, the opportunity to shine as they take the audience on the emotional rollercoaster of its final act.The play begins as a recognizable Coward comedy, with catty banter between Florence’s friends. In this production by director Bob Tomson, this first act lacks pace and spontaneity, but the cast comes into its own in the second act set in Florence’s country home, building tension before the two leads go on to steal the show in the final emotional confrontational scene as they “swirl about in a vortex of beastliness,” as Nicky puts it.Seymour, in her return to the stage after 36 years, is in full control of her character, as she moves excitedly among her friends (everything is “divine” and simply “heavenly”), capturing the fake gaiety and her character’s self-absorption, as well as her deeper insecurity over her fading looks. But the star truly shone in the more demanding scenes, laying bare Florence’s anguish.As the troubled son, Spinney only hints at the character’s homosexuality and drug addiction, but charms with his childlike, excitable energy and impresses with live musical turns on the piano and singing.The quietly emotional scenes revealing the awkward tenderness between Nicky and his father, beautifully played with restraint and melancholy by John Faulkner, provide a break from the melodrama of the friends and lovers, but it is the chemistry between Seymour and Spinney in the final scene, where the more ambiguous relationship between the mother and son is revealed, that leaves the audience pondering the various contemporary messages in this timeless classic.The Vortex is on at the Jubilee Hall of the Raffles Hotel until May 14
↧