Elyot and Amanda, once married and now honeymooning with new spouses at the same hotel, meet by chance, reignite the old spark and impulsively elope. After days of being reunited, they again find their fiery romance alternating between passions of love and anger. Their aggrieved spouses appear and a roundelay of affiliations ensues as the women first stick together, then apart, and new partnerships are formed.

PRIVATE LIVES demonstrates all the quick wit audiences have come to expect from Coward's work, while exploring a portrait of love in a particularly savage light. As ex-lovers Amanda Prynne and Elyot Chase find themselves both honeymooning with their new spouses at the same hotel in France, old resentments quickly fan the fires of an old flame. Always lively, Coward's script is filled to the brim with clever barbs and witty retorts as Amanda and Elyot bounce back and forth between a state of passionate infatuation and ferocious hostility. Caught in their path are their current spouses, a bubbly young bride named Sibyl and an aging old louse named Victor, who do their best to hold their own against Amanda and Elyot's inescapable squabbles. Not only is it always amusing to watch such volatile characters set against one another, but there also seems to be a more serious examination of romance resting beneath PRIVATE LIVE's farcical surface. Coward seems especially interested in the destructive nature of love in a world that expects etiquette and order. This is a comedy that explores love in all its chaotic, irrational unpredictability and manages to make sense out of something senseless.