Noël and Gertie

This season at Walnut Street Theatre's Independence Studio on 3 has begun with Sheridan Morley's "No�l & Gertie." This tribute and celebration of one of the most celebrated and commercially successful pairings of early show business history, No�l Coward & Gertrude Lawrence, is set as an intimate evening of storytelling and singing. Unfortunately, much of the evening felt more like an overindulgent dinner party.

"No�l & Gertie" is essentially a series of stories about their illustrious career together as well as the personal relationship they had up until Gertie's untimely death. These stories are often interwoven with some of their more popular songs and performances. Numbers ranging from torch ballads, sweet love tunes, and comedic camp show off the many reasons that this was such a long-standing and magical pairing.

What is unfortunate is that these combinations rarely connected, and neither did the characters themselves. For what should have been a heartfelt tribute, "No�l & Gertie" too often came off as an uneven assortment of anecdotes and unrelated song choices.

Worse was the tendency of the show to swivel between using the narrative sometimes to introduce a song that coincided with the part of their life story, and other times simply using it to introduce one of their shows. It left an inconsistency in the show that made it difficult to focus.

Both of the actors of the show, Will Stutts and Susan Wilder, were certainly pleasant enough in their roles, but too much of the intimacy between the two came from shallow banter and show business shtick. It was often unclear of whether the problem was the actors or the material, but their chemistry left much to be desired.

The show was not a complete misstep, as there were a great many sweet moments and entertaining old-time camp. It was cleverly staged and dynamically sequenced. However, the greatest failure of the show is that it did not use any of its strengths to its advantage.

It remained pointless until the end, and even after leaving, I never felt that I understood the story of "No�l & Gertie", nor felt any interest in learning more. There is much to be said for a tribute show such as "No�l & Gertie". Unfortunately, this particular one was mostly a misfire.