Review: WAITING IN THE WINGS at Theatricum Botanicum

Waiting in the Wings is a charming, classic 1960 Noel Coward play at Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon through October 3rd.  With moments of exquisite loveliness and bittersweet poignancy, this is a small, thoughtful dramedy.  Waiting in the Wings explores the glamor and elegance of a lost era, life on the stage of 1920s music halls, the terror and loss and beauty of aging, and the incomparable treasures of female friendship.  While Noel Coward’s writing is often messy, and Theatricum Botanicum’s production can be uneven at times, this is a richly rewarding production that lingers in the mind long after you see it.

Waiting in the Wings is that rare play with a quite sizable cast of mostly retirement-age actresses, not consigned to the sidelines in supporting roles, but allowed to be seen and celebrated for themselves.  What a treasure and a gift that is.

As an affectionate look at retired actresses in a charity home, Waiting in the Wings is also quite autobiographical, as Coward contemplated the end of his lifelong performing career in 1960 — at a point where he could no longer remember his lines easily, and beyond that, mourned the loss of the vanished world he grew up in.

Born in 1899, Noel Coward grew up on stage as a child actor, in a family struggling with poverty, where one of his early childhood talents was his crafty stealing.  But after Coward began to immerse himself in the upper-class milieu as a teen, thanks to his relationship with an older male artist, perhaps no one captures quite as well Coward the country house swagger and devil-may-care elan of this set.  In the 1920s, when he was the world’s highest-paid writer, Noel Coward perfected the image of the English dandy and wit, wafting about in a silk dressing gown, waving a cigarette holder and oozing sophistication and vicious little bon mots.

By 1960, when Noel Coward was writing Waiting in the Wings, his almost 50th play, that rarefied, pretentious, aristocratic world was long gone. Those sparkling, elegant years of the 1920s were swallowed up by the smoking ruin of Europe’s descent into fascism, another brutal world war, fear of a nuclear holocaust, postwar austerity, socialism, and working-class realism in theatre.

Noel Coward’s dialogue is an esoteric stylistic challenge, especially for those not native to the UK.  Coward’s rhythms are blissfully idiosyncratic and removed from everyday life, somewhere in a frolicking, hyper-articulate Neverland between a Dorothy Parker poem, a Jeeves and Wooster comedy, and an Oscar Wilde monologue.  The patchwork quilt of accents at Theatricm Botanicum struggles to keep up with Coward’s formal language, although most of the older actors do far better than the younger ones.  The actors’ native accents should probably have been used throughout, since the uneven accent work becomes a buzzing distraction I kept wanting to swat away.

Occasionally shaggy and meandering, badly in need of a haircut, Waiting in the Wings comes in at almost three hours.  There are strangely repetitive moments, overly fussy dialogue, and a compulsive tendency to lean into sentiment rather than real emotion.  A sanctimonious tone arises in some scenes, with the characters telling each other how to behave and how to feel.  I counted at least three separate moments where I felt like the play was ending, and then, improbably, it just kept going.  Watching Waiting in the Wings, it is clear why the play has always struggled a bit to find its place.  It was a flop in its initial UK run, then took decades to reach Broadway, and when it did, it closed after a couple of months.

And yet, for all its kitchen-sink messiness, on stage at Theatricum Botanicum, Waiting in the Wings has a bewitching, tender, elegiac charm.  There is something quite special in this production that is more than simply the sum of its parts, something truly bittersweet, poignant, and deeply affecting.

Willow Geer’s directing can be inspired, but also can be patchy.  While the younger actors are sometimes miscast, with performances ranging from misguided to quite pungently bad, the large cast of golden age actresses are mostly glorious. Jan Wikstrom, Susan Angelo, Ellen Geer, and Gini Autumn Benson stand out for particularly layered, compelling, charismatic, heartfelt performances.

There are enchanting sets with a lovely, elegant, wistful, lived-in quality by Darby Huffaker and pitch-perfect costumes by Vicki Conrad, capturing not only period, but also subtle, vibrant character notes.

There is a kind of ineffable magic in the air at the historic Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum.  You feel it the moment you arrive and it grows, the closer you get to twilight.  Something about being in the midst of acres of Topanga Canyon wilderness, the smell of mountain sage and wildflowers and salty sea mist drifting in from Malibu.  This is a haute hippie dreamworld of cabins, rambling gardens, and rustic stages.  Bats continuously swooped in during Waiting in the Wings. A chorus of frogs and crickets can be heard offstage.

Like that glorious vaudeville palace, The Hollywood Pantages Theatre, Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum is a legendary destination in its own right.   I cannot think of a more fitting and wondrous place to spend a balmy summer night under the stars, soaking up the gorgeous beauty of classic theatre.  No summer in Los Angeles feels complete without the Theatricum Botanicum.  I love to bundle a trip to the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum with jaunts like a hike in the nearby mountains, or perusing the gardens and galleries of the Getty Villa, or a stop by the idyllic Inn of the Seventh Ray, another very magical local Topanga Canyon haunt.

If it is your first time at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, know that you can rent a cushion from the theatre for the tiered, amphitheater-style bench seating.  For matinees, you might want to bring sunglasses, hats, and sun protection.  For evening performances, I recommend ponchos, cozy blankets, or layers of wraps or sweaters, since the theatre is outdoors and even balmy nights in the canyon can feel chilly as the evening deepens.

Show up early, if you can, to soak up the extraordinary, enchanting atmosphere of Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum.  There are tables and chairs under the trees and string lights by the creek bed where you can enjoy a picnic before the show.  After surviving the horrific devastation of the wildfires, Theatricum Botanicum feels even more special and vital than ever.  This is one of the most enchanting, must-see places in Los Angeles.

Photos by Ian Flanders and courtesy of Theatricum Botanical

Reader Reviews

To post a comment, you must register and login.

Get Los Angeles Emails & Offers

Get the latest news, discounts & more