I can think of two reasons why the Roundabout Theatre Company chose to revive Fallen Angels, an early trifle by Noël Coward that’s been absent from Broadway for seventy years. The first is Rose Byrne. The second is Kelli O’Hara.

These ladies make an irresistible pair from a marketing standpoint: Byrne is hot off her Oscar-nominated performance in If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You. O’Hara is one of Broadway’s most beloved performers, with nine Tony nominations to her name and a compelling role on the popular television show The Gilded Age. The two of them together proves to be catnip for the box office: the limited run at the Todd Haimes Theatre is virtually sold out.

Yet even these two game comedians can hardly liven a rather leaden early effort from Britain’s legendary social satirist. Coward’s plot is razor-thin: when their husbands leave London for a golf weekend, Julia Sterroll (O’Hara) and Jane Banbury (Byrne) wait around to for a visit from Maurice Duclos (Mark Consuelos), a suave Frenchman with whom they both had youthful trysts. They gossip. They preen. They drink too much – O’Hara’s Julia especially. Well, the role was originated by Tallulah Bankhead after all.

But although Byrne is an adept physical comedian and O’Hara is a consistently winning presence, the script still seems like boilerplate boulevard comedy. Scott Ellis’s direction feels occasionally flabby, and most of the supporting performances fail to register. Tracee Chimo comes across a tad subdued as the worldly maid Saunders, while Aasif Mandvi and Christopher Fitzgerald goose the material a bit too liberally as the otherwise occupied husbands. (Coward surely meant the audience to intuit a gay subtext here, which is entirely devoid in this production.)

The exception is Consuelos, who saunters into the action ten minutes before the curtain and walks away with the show. With a French accent you could spread on toast, he proves the absolute charm both women remember him to be, and you fully understand why they still swoon.

The Roundabout production spares no expense, indulging in one of the great pleasures of a Coward comedy – the opportunity for eye-popping sets (David Rockwell) and costumes (Jeff Mahshie). Compared to other comedies of manners, though, Fallen Angels falls flat.

Photos by Joan Marcus