Coward’s ‘Design’ of Artists’ Portraits

Noel Coward’s “Design for Living” at A Noise Within provides a fascinating counterpoint to the recently arrived “Rent” in its portrait of unconventional bohemians from a very different age.

Gilda (Jenna Cole), Otto (Francois Giroday) and Leo (Art Manke) are young artists who, like the figures in “Rent,” are wrestling with romantic entanglements and the lure of success. There is no dreaded disease hanging over this trio, however, and they achieve considerably more success than the “Rent” crowd. They also live in an era--the early ‘30s--when social and sexual conventions were more firmly in place. All of this makes it easier to focus on their inner turbulence as they choose to defy those conventions.

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Two of the three actors in the menage a trois assembled by director Sabin Epstein are downright magnetic from the get-go: Cole as she surges through a minefield of conflicting emotions and three radically disparate hairstyles, and Giroday, whose friskiness and charisma are enough to make his most impulsive outbursts and gestures completely credible. Manke’s Leo, thin and nervous as he’s described in the text, lacks the others’ natural effervescence, which helps us understand why Gilda grows tired of him. But as Leo later loosens up, so does Manke--his eyes gleam as much as Giroday’s at the end.

Mitchell Edmonds brings sympathy to this trio’s much-abused older friend. Ann Marie Lee and June Claman are very funny--Lee as a suspicious maid and Claman as an American society dowager who can’t quite get the New York streets out of her accent.

Befitting the title, Alex Jaeger came up with a parade of sensational-looking clothes. Anna Pasquale’s sets aren’t quite as lustrous but certainly suggest three diverse interiors with ease and without clutter.

* “Design for Living,” A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Friday and Saturday(10/17-18), 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m.; Nov. 5-6, 14, 19-20, 8 p.m.; Nov. 15, 2 p.m.; Nov. 23, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Nov. 23. $22-$27. (818) 546-1924. Running time: 2 hours, 55 minutes.