Noel Coward's Fallen Angels

At Roundabout Theater

By: Karen Isaacs - May 02, 2026

 

Rose Byrne and Kelly O’Hara are tearing up the stage in the Roundabout Theatre’s production of Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels. It is a delight.

Coward has a reputation for brittle sophisticated comedy, but let’s give the man credit for also being a keen observer and commentator on society’s sometimes ridiculous mores.

This early Coward play (he was in his 20s) stirred up a controversy in London when it was first performed in 1925. Why? Because it not only pointed out the double standard of sexual morality between men and women at the time, but it also acknowledged women as sexual beings.

Best friends, Julia and Jane are left alone for the weekend while they’re very dull and conventional husbands go golfing. Each has been married seven years and though the marriages are happy enough, not only are they conventional but the passion has long gone.

Jullia and Jane are scarcely conventional. They have a history of getting into predicaments and getting themselves out of them.

They also have a secret that would shock their husbands and society at the time: before their marriages, each had a passionate fling with a Frenchman while in Italy, Maurice is a part of their joint history and on their minds

When Jane arrives at Julia’s gorgeous art deco luxury apartment, she tells her she has received an enigmatic postcard from the said Maurice indicating he was arriving in London that very day.

The two women are not necessarily unhappy at that news. In fact, when the mail comes, Julia is delighted to receive a similar card.

The women spend the day and evening waiting for Maurice; they promised each other they will be strong and not succumb to his charms, but it’s clear that those charms were very powerful and hard to resist. There is some competition or jealousy between the two.

As of the day wears on an enormous amount of alcohol is consumed – martinis, champagne, and Brandies — with the result that their physical and emotional self-control, slowly evaporates

This is where Kelly O’Hara as Julia displays a wonderful ability at physical comedy, sprawling, tumbling and stumbling. In fact, I have never laughed so much at someone with a severe hangover going down a flight upstairs

Late in the evening, all the alcohol also fuels arguments and Jane storms off having hinted that she knows where Maurice is and is going to him.

The final scene has the husbands arriving home unexpectedly. They too had a tiff, and each think he has left the other at the hotel near the golf course. Julia has a terrible hangover and Jane is missing.

Jane and Julia, each reveal to the other’s husband, the details of the premarital adventures. The men are apoplectic.

The mysterious Maurice does in fact arrive, and the women make up an elaborate story to explain that nothing had happened in Italy. But the audience is left to wonder what will occur as Maurice announces he will be living in London for a year in a flat surprisingly near Julia.

This it’s a play Coward wrote giving two women two actresses, stunning roles. The original London production featured Edna Best and Tallulah Bankhead. Here Byrne and O’Hara not only capture the period style but make us both admire these women who refused to adhere to convention, and at times be appalled at their drunken behavior.

The husbands here very well played by Christopher Fitzgerald, as Jane’s husband and Aasif Mandvi as Julia’s. These are stereotypical upper middle-class Englishmen of the period, rather dull and undemonstrative and with a assured sense of their own importance as guardians of morality. Both are very good.

Maurice played here by Mark Consuelos making his Broadway view is more a tool of Coward than a fully realized character. He is the suave, debonair, and handsome foreigner in contrast to the husband’s staid respectability.

Coward also wrote wonderful roles for women playing maids. Here, Tracee Chimo, as Saunders. Julia’s newly hired maid is a delight. She milks every laugh from the character who you suspect may not last long in her job. Saunders has had a varied career and is willing to share her knowledge about many subjects from instructing the husband about golf to correcting Julia and Rose’s French.

Because Coward clothes his “message” in this delicious comedy and repartee, you don’t necessarily realize his point until near the end, and one can . argue at the point is made too obviously

Leaving the theatre, you will wonder if Julia and Jane will resist the temptations offered by Maurice. I for one sort of hope not.