Broadway Reviews Theatre Review by Howard Miller - April 19, 2026 Fallen Angels by Noël Coward. Directed by Scott Ellis. Set design by David Rockwell. Costume design by Jeff Mahshie. Lighting design by Kenneth Posner. Sound design by John Gromada. Hair and wig design by David Brian Brown and Victoria Tinsman. Vocal coach Kate Wilson. Additional material by Claudia Shear. Music consultant Mary-Mitchell Campbell.
The play, directed at breakneck speed by Scott Ellis, is a combo pack of a comedy of manners, French farce, and slapstick. Remember "I Love Lucy"? If so, think of Fallen Angels as embodying one of Lucy and Ethel's harebrained adventures. Or, since this is a British play after all, imagine them as inhabitants of "Fawlty Towers." Kelli O'Hara and Rose Byrne play friends (and sometimes frenemies) who live in the same block of flats in London. One glance at David Rockwell's gorgeous art deco set design will let you know that they are members of the affluent class. The pair, Julia (O'Hara) and Jane (Rose Byrne), are settled into staid married lives with jolly good but boring husbands. Julia's is Fred, played by Aasif Mandvi; Jane's is Willy, played by Christopher Fitzgerald. In the very first scene, Fred and Julia are discussing the state of their relationship after five years of wedded bliss. The most romantic thing he can come up with is "we've reached a remarkable sublime plane of affection and comradeship."
Turns out, Julia and Jane have each received a postcard from Maurice saying, most romantically in French, that he will be arriving in London this week, and "j'espere avec tout mon coeur que vous me n'oubliez pas." (If you have oubliez-ed your high school French, that's "I hope with all my heart that you haven't forgotten me"). Ooh la la! The two women, dressed to the nines in lovely gowns designed by Jeff Mahshie, spend what turns out to be the funniest portion of the play acting like a pair of schoolgirls on prom night as they daydream aloud how they will greet Maurice when he shows up. And while they wait, they have a glass of champagne ("a great strengthener" is how Julia justifies it). Quickly, that glass becomes another and another and another, until they are both almost literally falling-down drunk. Here's when the silliness floats to the ceiling on a bubble of champagne. The two dance and stumble and take pratfalls around the apartment in girlish delight, until it occurs to both of them that the other actually intends to rendezvous with Maurice. Will they go through with the competition, or will they turn on each other? And what to do when the hubbies return sooner than expected in the midst of a downpour that we can watch through the flat's floor-to-ceiling casement windows? Mandvi and Fitzgerald and even the long-awaited Mark Consuelos do not have much to do here, mostly react. This is definitely ladies' night, bolstered by the addition of another woman on hand to help ramp things up to the universe of screwball comedy. That would be Tracee Chimo, who shows herself to be a maestra of comic timing in the role of Julia's maid Saunders. If you are more familiar with Coward's Blithe Spirit, think of the frenetic maid Edith, but with a quick wit and a truckload of knowledge that she happily dispenses as she rushes in and out of the room. It is she who provides some of the play's most scintillating humor, helping to give the production a great blend of lowbrow silliness and clever quips. That's Fallen Angels, an evening of good silly fun, skillfully directed and performed by a cast that is both solid in their delivery and comfortable enough to take on a loosey-goosey style, speak in catch-as-catch-can British accents, and even make each other laugh. Curmudgeons should probably stay home, but for everyone else, heed the words of the old Bobby McFerrin song: "Don't worry, be happy."
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