Happy Deceit Aren't We All?

By W.A.H. III

The theater is a medium of illusion, and among the dreams it fosters is that the clock can be turned back and the ravages of time denied. Film and TV close-ups reveal the smallest encroachments of age; the stage keeps a civilized distance between seemingly ageless performers and happily deceived audiences. In the Broadway revival of Frederick Lonsdale's 1923 Aren't We All?, part of the charm is a return to the heyday of drawing-room comedy and, for that matter, of drawing rooms. The chief pleasure is seeing Rex Harrison, 77, and Claudette Colbert, 81, apparently just as vibrant and elegant and, yes, young as when they became stars more than half a century ago. When, during their autumnal courtship, Harrison declares, "My age is 48," and Colbert responds that hers is 22, the laughter they evoke is indulgent, not disbelieving.

Not much else goes on in Aren't We All?: a wife walks in on her husband as he is kissing another woman, and during the next two hours the only question is whether he will discover that she has had a recent flirtation too. Lonsdale's polite palaver provides an opportunity for the display of style by Lynn Redgrave and Jeremy Brett as the urbanely warring couple, George Rose and Brenda Forbes as a tippling reverend and his priggish wife and, above all, Colbert, with her breezy manner and chorus-girl legs, and Harrison, with his merry twinkle and courtly roguery. Escapist the experience undeniably is, but Aren't We All? could not bear the weight of added incident, let alone redeeming social importance. Either would amount to gilding gossamer.