Present Laughter.

One street further up Broadway, at the Walter Kerr Theatre, a production is taking a comic view of a great artist's debt to his image. A witty cross between a drawing-room comedy and a farce, Noel Coward's 1939 play Present Laughter portrays a very bad week in the life of a conceited theatrical darling and his ever-increasing circle of annoying hangers-on. The shrewd and hilarious production directed by Scott Elliott occupies the opposite end of the theatrical spectrum from Taking Sides: every speech and piece of stage business falls into place to celebrate the sheer fun of performance.

The seduction starts when you enter the theater, with its gilt and peach paneling, and find veteran cabaret artist Steve Ross playing a grand piano on the edge of the stage. Ross, his hair parted exactly down the middle, sits in front of a mansion's gray facade, playing songs from the thirties. As the house lights dim and a dappled glow plays over the facade, Ross launches into a few Noel Coward songs, including the priceless "Mrs. Worthington":

Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington;

Don't put your daughter on the stage.

Tho' they said at the School of Acting she was lovely as Peer Gynt

I'm afraid on the whole an ingenue role

Would emphasize her squint.

At the end of his routine, the sounds of an old phonograph replace Ross's voice; the piano slides backward on tracks, and the facade lifts to reveal the faded but elegant studio that is the set throughout the play. When Ross steps out from the piano, he is Fred, butler to theatrical legend Gary Essendine.

Starring in the role of Essendine is Frank Langella, who has received just encomiums for his exuberant performance. Langella plays the aging playboy with superb petulance. From the moment when he slinks down the set's curving staircase in his pajamas, at the beginning of act 1, he shares each exaggerated gesture - each exasperated sigh, each preen, each tantrum - as a sort of in-joke with the audience.

Absurdly theatrical, as it is meant to be, the performance forms the axis around which this marvelously choreographed show revolves. Clever, idiosyncratic directorial touches make the Coward script even funnier: the morose and Essendine-obsessed young writer Roland Maule (Tim Hopper) pads into act 2 wearing a ridiculous set of gaiters, and as the studio fills up he moves a chair to the top of the staircase in order to have a better view of the social bloodletting. At the beginning of act 3, empty wine bottles posed along the steps of this same staircase let us know just how rough a time Essendine has been having.

Sterling professionalism shines in each aspect of the production: in the set, which is cluttered just enough to keep it interesting, in the jaunty performances of the supporting actors, and in the atmospheric lighting design by Brian Mac Devitt, which features a stunning representation of daylight streaming through a window. Ross and his piano glide to the front of the stage at the end of each act, to provide music during the intermissions and prolong the mood of indulgence.

Theater this entertaining does seem a luxury, and Noel Coward knew it. "The theater of the future is the theater of ideas," he has Maule say to Essendine in a particularly priggish moment. "All you do with your talent is to wear dressing-gowns and make witty remarks when you might be really helping people, making them think!" Present Laughter doesn't make you think very hard, but sometimes theater is just an illusion, and to some illusions it is worth succumbing.

Celia Wren is a frequent contributor to Commonweal.