Noël Coward’s Present Laughter stars Tony Award®-winner Kevin Kline and Cobie Smulders, whose performance earned her the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut. Noël Coward’s Present Laughter comes to GREAT PERFORMANCES on Friday, November 3rd at 9PM (check local listings). The play continues the Broadway’s Best lineup on PBS.
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TRANSCRIPT
COBIE SMULDERS: I could cry now, you know very effectively, if I only had the technique.
KEVIN KLINE: Technique certainly is very important.
COBIE SMULDERS: Oh dear.
KEVIN KLINE: Conversation seems to have come to a standstill.
COBIE SMULDERS: I think perhaps I would like to have another drink after all, just a very small one.
KEVIN KLINE: Soup's on.
COBIE SMULDERS: Thank you.
Oh, you make me feel extraordinarily self-conscious.
That's one of your most renowned gifts, isn't it frightening people?
KEVIN KLINE: Surely you''re not going to pretend that I frighten you.
COBIE SMULDERS: It''s personality, I expect.
You look strangely young every now and then.
It would be nice to know what you were really like, under all the trappings.
KEVIN KLINE: Just a simple boy stinking with idealism.
COBIE SMULDERS: Sentimental too.
Are you happy on the whole?
KEVIN KLINE: Ecstatically.
Would you like me to play you something?
COBIE SMULDERS: No, thank you.
KEVIN KLINE: Why ever not?
You must be mad!
COBIE SMULDERS: Not mad, just musical.
[Laughter] KEVIN KLINE: Snappy too.
Quite rude in fact.
COBIE SMULDERS: Yes, that was rather rude, wasn''t it?
I''m sorry.
KEVIN KLINE: Nevermind.
What should we do now?
COBIE SMULDERS: Do?
Is there any necessity to do anything?
KEVIN KLINE: I don''t know, my social sense tells me something is demanded, but for the life of me I can't think what it is.
