Joan Collins Upstaged in ‘Private Lives’ Opening

Joan Collins returned to the London theater in Noel Coward’s “Private Lives,” only to leave the audience and the critics raving about a supporting performer, Sara Crowe.

“A star is born and steals the show from Joan Collins,” the Daily Mail said following Wednesday night’s opening at the Aldwych Theater.

Critic Jack Tinker said Crowe “gave this show’s most bankable star a runaway lesson in the essential elements of a classic Coward performance. . . . Ms. Crowe turns each line into a bright, sparkling gem.”

“Sara Crowe all but runs off with the evening,” wrote the Guardian’s Michael Billington. He called Collins, best-known as “Dynasty” dragon Alexis Carrington, “glamorous but strangely unfunny.”

The stuff of a publicist’s dreams? Not necessarily in Britain, where caution and diplomacy rule.

How was Crowe taking it? Does a gentleman ask?

“Think of it from her point of view,” said publicist Mary Parker, gently refusing a request to speak to the new star. “How would you like to be known as the actress who upstaged Joan Collins?”

Crowe’s agent, Richard Stone, wasn’t touching that question. Call Mary Parker, his secretary said.

How was Collins taking it?

“All along Joan has been the first person to want to be surrounded by high-quality actors,” declared her European press agent, Stella Wilson.

“This is an ensemble piece,” Wilson told the Associated Press. “It’s not the Joan Collins Show.”

At least not when the blonde, pug-nosed Crowe takes to the stage.

She has the small, sometimes thankless role of Sybil, 23-year-old second wife of Elyot (Keith Baxter), former husband of the elegantly barbed Amanda (Collins).

Having ended a fraught marriage in which they both adored and reviled each other, Amanda and Elyot unexpectedly meet on the balcony of a French hotel while honeymooning with their new spouses.

The spouses, who barely even figure in Act II, weren’t meant to dominate Coward’s 1930 play. Not so in this case.

Benedict Nightingale in The Times of London said Crowe “gets the laughs Collins eschews,” whereas Collins “substitutes lacquer for life.”

“By the end of the evening, the audience was cheering Sara Crowe’s Sybil quite as much as it had earlier rooted for Amanda,” wrote Malcolm Rutherford in the Financial Times, though he said of Collins that “this ‘Private Lives’ is worth seeing for her alone.”

Milton Shulman in the Evening Standard found Collins “most pleasing,” and he called Crowe “a comic delight.”

In a swipe at the evening’s above-the-title dark-haired draw, Maureen Paton in the Daily Express called Crowe “one of those decided blondes who can be far more devastating than brunettes.”

“Private Lives” marks only the second West End appearance for Crowe, whose credits include Alan Ayckbourn’s “Henceforward . . . “ and a cabaret act called “The Flamin’ Hamsters.”

Collins, 57, last starred on the London stage a decade ago in “The Last of Mrs. Cheyney.” She is contracted to “Private Lives” through Jan. 19.