Video: Rose Byrne and the Cast of Fallen Angels Discuss the Play’s Scandalous History

The Broadway revival of Noël Coward’s groundbreaking play will run at the Todd Haimes Theatre until June 7.

April 07, 2026 By Gabby Macogay, Jeffrey Vizcaíno

The 1925 comedy Fallen Angels is currently getting a revival on Broadway at the Todd Haimes Theatre. In researching Noël Coward’s play, actor and three-time Tony nominee Christopher Fitzgerald found reviews calling the original production “disgusting,” “odious,” and “hideous.”

“It was very scandalous at the time,” Golden Globe winner Rose Byrne shares with Playbill’s Jeffrey Vizcaíno. "The play was nearly banned, and honestly even talking about it around the table still creates some opinions about polyamory.”

Fallen Angels follows the antics of two upper-class women who discover they shared a past lover prior to their current marriages. Marriages that Byrne, who plays Jane Banbury opposite Kelli O'Hara’s Julia Sterroll, describes as rather dull, causing the women’s interest to pique when this former flame is rumored to be returning to town (just as their husbands are on their way out).

In Playbill’s video interview with the cast, we learn more about the stars’ feelings about tackling the once-wildly controversial period piece.

“I think farce is one of the hardest genres to do," says Byrne. "It's so easy to be bad, and it's a technical feat to achieve it. That's what we're trying to do and it's daunting. But that's why I wanted to do it."