Mad & Hell, Mame & Vera, Elphaba & Glinda–one can add to this short list of famous frenemies of stage, the names Julia and Jane, the delightful and dastardly dynamic diva duo in the current revival of Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels, played magnificently by Kelli O’Hara and Rose Byrne, respectively.
Unlike the horror show on display at the Majestic Theatre, AKA the Beaches debacle, Fallen Angels is an intelligent, coherent, hilarious and respectful tribute to female friendship—well, some of the time, anyway—at other times these two sly women are ready to throw each other under the bus to either save their own skin, seek revenge or bag the suave Frenchman who they both had relations with many years ago. But their adoration for one another is never in doubt. And the nastiness is all in good farcical fun.
Written over 100 years ago, Noel Coward’s drawing room comedy was first produced on the London stage in 1925 with Tallulah Bankhead and Edna Best. It’s considered one of the author’s lesser works, despite the outraged it caused when it initially bowed, and it isn’t as frequently produced as, say, Blithe Spirit, Design for Living, Hay Fever (coming to the West End this Fall with Christine Baranski!) and Present Laughter. As a matter of fact, this is the first Broadway production in 70 years.
Roundabout Theatre Company and pace-perfect director Scott Ellis (Pirates! The Penzance Musical) have awakened this quite funny if somewhat slight theatrical bonbon and mined it for all possible laughs, not just via the witty dialogue but the pointed pauses. And the play still has something stinging to say about the double standard between women and men when it comes to…lust.
The basic plot has great, longtime friends Julia Sterroll (O’Hara) and Jane Banbury (Byrne), both married, neither very happily, who are each excited by the prospect of an old lover returning to town, after a nine-year absence. They proceed to get wildly intoxicated and pent-up jealousies and libidinous passions bubble to the surface.
Both actresses dive into their wacky roles rather fearlessly.
O’Hara’s Julia is the more reserved and sensible, yet prone to side-splittingly funny slapstick pratfalls. It’s a joy to watch O’Hara cut loose in a non-musical. Don’t get me wrong, I adore her in musicals—her performance in The Bridges of Madison County was one of the stage highlights of the last 20 years and she was so robbed of that Tony—but watching her lose herself in this show was a treat and made me wish that someone would produce an original straight play for her!
Byrne, fresh off her deserved Oscar-nomination for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, plays the thundering loon Jane. Byrne has shown us her comic gifts many times onscreen (Spy, Neighbors, Bridesmaids) but never has she been this cuttingly nasty one minute and zanily effervescent the next. She is spellbinding. And her hair, later in the 90-minute production must be seen to be believed.
Together, they’re a fabulous dream team.
Tracee Chimo as Saunders, Julia’s super knowledgeable maid, manages to steal a bunch of moments. The running joke with Saunders is that she’s had about 20 million jobs…and thanks to Chimo’s delivery, it never gets old.
The men in the cast are pretty negligible. But that doesn’t matter because it’s the Kelli & Rose show. And that’s more than enough!
Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Fallen Angels is playing at the newly renovated Todd Haimes Theatre (formerly the American Airlines Theatre), 227 West 42nd Street, NYC for a limited engagement through Sunday, June 7, 2026.. For tickets visit FALLEN ANGELS.
