Noël Coward’s Suite in Three Keys

This is a production that gets to the heart of Coward’s drama which stunningly probes at the concept of identity.

In many ways, Tom Littler’s production speaks perfectly to our present moment: set too in a highly precarious moment for European politics, Coward explores the same sensitivities surrounding sex and gender that exist today.

In ill health, Hugo Latymer (Stephen Boxer) and his wife Hilde (Emma Fielding) live in a hotel on the banks of Lake Geneva when they are visited by Hugo’s old flame, Carlotta (Tara Fitzgerald).

Bringing with her letters that shed light on Hugo’s homosexuality, Carlotta effectively stirs up a glamorous storm, with frequently funny additions from butler Felix (Steffan Rizzi).

To fully explore the various relationships and the feelings bound up in them, Coward often relies on culinary metaphors to express the depth of human instinct.

This is expertly brought to life with the decadent three-course meal Hugo and Carlotta devour on stage.

Littler’s direction is wonderful here, as the meal becomes a focal point that swells and retracts in mood and atmosphere as the diners battle it out. This set piece foregrounds Coward’s forensic approach to emotion.

Alongside the preoccupation with appetite – both culinary and sexual – sits a focus on the zoological, as riffs on animal instinct and desire punctuate Coward’s script. A backdrop to these metaphors is the recent (A Song at Twilight is set in the 60s) terror of the Second World War and Hilde’s experience of Nazi Germany.

These elements crystallise excellently in a scene at the end of this production, when Hilde and Carlotta sit together, directly opposite a dejected, slumped Hugo, and talk about him as if he isn’t even present.

A literal dissection of his character and his life takes place before our very eyes, as Hilde and Carlotta’s sharp words cut Hugo open and lay him bare for all to see.

Coward’s clinical focus on how humans are coded and programmed jointly considers both Hugo’s sexuality and the horrifying historical backdrop where the genetic makeup of each individual was scrutinised for dreadful ends.

The Orange Tree as a theatre is indeed optimal for Coward’s play. The small square playing space, surrounded on all four sides by the audience, is admirably exploited to hone in on the interaction between public and private, something that preoccupies Hugo and his concern with reputation.

The audience, in such close proximity to the action, they are somewhat awkwardly positioned as onlookers to intensely intimate conversations, conversations that persistently modulate between English, French, German and Italian.

The inclusion of each of these languages at times alienates the audience, further extending that sense of secrecy, whilst also pointing to the political tensions that lie within different tongues at this moment in history.