I’m not going out on a limb to say Design for Living, Noël Cowards’ 1933 play, is funny. Take, for instance, this exchange between former lovers Otto and Gilda about her beauty routine:

Otto:  …Your skin’s much better.

Gilda:  It ought to be, I’ve been taking a lot of trouble with it.

Otto:  What sort of trouble?

Gilda:  Oh, just having it pushed and rubbed and slapped about.

The script is full of such delicious double entendres, but between the jokes, Jerry Mouawad, the director of Imago Theatre’s revival, has made the gutsy choice to bring out some of the show’s darker notes.

On the surface, the plot is all froth and fun, involving various couplings among its three main characters: Gilda, Otto and Leo. In Act I, Gilda (Caitlin Rose) is an interior designer who lives with Otto (Joe Cullen), a painter, in a shabby Paris apartment, when Leo (K.J. Snyder), a playwright, who also loves Gilda – and Otto – shows up and shakes things up.

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The next act finds Gilda and Leo snuggled up together in a smart London flat. This time, Otto’s appearance shuffles the romantic deck, which is again rearranged in the third act, where Gilda is living in New York with Ernest (Sean D. Lujan), a prim art dealer. Complications ensue as Leo and Otto return to coax her into being the trois in their ménage.

Over the course of the play, the three characters all become more successful, and the progressively fancier sets (designed by Mouawad, Notion, and Jim Peerenboom) reflect this upward mobility. Shifting from the subdued palette of the Paris apartment, with its threadbare couch and a pile of empty paint cans, for example, the London flat is decorated with velvety furniture and rich autumnal colors.

Another adornment here is a striking reproduction (by Notion) of the painting “Young Woman in Green, Young Woman with Gloves” by Tamara de Lempicka, a free-spirited art deco artist. Although she was twice married to men, de Lempicka lived on her own terms, having affairs with men and women alike, and the presence of her painting here makes a statement about sex and the constraints of a judgmental society. 

Considering that the British-born Coward was gay and that homosexuality was a crime in England and Wales until the passing of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, there’s good reason to emphasize the angst his unconventional Design for Living characters feel, even as they laugh in the face of disapproval.

Their dissatisfaction is clear in Coward’s script. Ernest says Gilda has “painful twistings and turnings,” which she confirms by stating, “The human race is a let-down.” Later, Leo angrily – Coward’s direction says “violently” – confronts the socially conservative Ernest: “Why should we be quiet? Why should your pompous moral pretensions be allowed to hurtle across the city without any competition?” It’s easy to imagine that Coward is speaking through his characters, and instead of softening such lines with a light delivery during the Oct. 10 opening night performance, Mouawad’s actors revealed the dissatisfaction and bitterness behind these words.

This is not to say that Imago’s production doesn’t have plenty of fizz: We get a good helping of it, especially with Snyder’s sensuous portrayal of Leo, who looks at both Gilda and Otto as if they were a pair of particularly creamy profiteroles.

And in the second act, Diane Slamp is on hand to provide some riotous physical comedy with her Miss Hodge, a dull-witted maid who comically runs around the London flat in her stocking feet and slides across the floor. She’s also hilarious when she addresses Gilda as “Miss,” heavily emphasizing the word after learning Gilda and Leo aren’t married. Lujan, too, gets his moment of comic genius with what may be one of the funniest and most drawn-out exits ever made by an actor.

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Throughout the production, jazzy music plays between scenes, evoking the dizzy pace of a screwball comedy even during those times when the play itself feels more sober. Then, almost as if it were a different show, everything loosens up in the giddy third act, which features Otto and Leo crashing Gilda’s party and looking like twin Fred Astaires, complete with top hats, colorful cummerbunds and canes. 

Their impeccably timed dance steps and synchronized gestures are a delight. The two men even do a kind of vaudeville act, making music by rhythmically tapping a bottle and a cocktail shaker on a table and dropping ice into a glass (sounds made crystal clear, thanks to Myrrh Larsen’s sound wizardry). Brittainy Mather is also amusing as an upper-crust gal who can’t keep up with the big dogs when it comes to banter.

While it would have been fun to see more such shenanigans earlier in the play, Mouawad’s aim to also offer us some food for thought is admirable. After all, Coward knew as well as anyone that not everything in life is a laughing matter.

***

Design for Living continues at Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8^th Ave. in Portland, through Oct. 26. Find schedules and ticket information here.