Cattrall isn't Samantha in 'Private Lives'

She really isn't Samantha after all. No matter how many times an actor says that he/she isn't actually a TV character, it takes a deft star turn in something big -- this time, "Private Lives" -- to separate someone famous -- that is, Kim Cattrall -- from the imprint of something as pervasive as "Sex and the City."

The separation is complete and impressive. Cattrall, who has been doing serious theater in London for years, may be the obvious reason for this Broadway transfer of Noel Coward's much-done 1930 classic comedy.

But she has been paired off here with Paul Gross, the Canadian star of "due South" and "Slings & Arrows," who matches her in both light-comedy physicality and major sexual chemistry.

Director Richard Eyre's production doesn't compare to the elegant, deeply felt "Private Lives" that Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan brought to Broadway in 2002. But after decades of revivals that exploited Coward's most popular comedy as a sideshow for aging actresses with something to prove (Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins, anyone?), this one keeps the stakes up at what Coward calls the "big tables."

Cattrall is Amanda, Gross is Elyot--volatile and bratty free spirits, divorced for five years, who reignite on the adjoining balconies while on honeymoons with new spouses at the same French hotel.

It's no surprise that Cattrall can play a strong, libidinous woman. What we learn here, however, is that she has an altogether different speaking voice than the one the entire western world can recognize, not to mention a sweet singing voice and, like Gross, the delightful daring of a sophisticated clown.

Coward's stylish couple must inevitably degenerate into tedious low-comedy violence and it's hard to love a man who almost-jokes, "Certain women ought to be struck regularly, like dogs." But Cattrall and Gross make emotional bipolarity seem charming as they flop around the pasha beds in Amanda's flat--part Guggenheim Museum, part Turkish bordello -- designed by Rob Howell.

Anna Madeley makes an aptly chirpy Sybil, Elyot's bride. Simon Paisley Day is a priggy Victor, Amanda's groom. Eyre suggests the jilted spouses have sex, which is unnecessary, and has Elyot kiss Victor on the mouth, which is just wrong. Coward, well known for his "talent to amuse" and his closet homosexuality, would not be amused.

WHAT "Private Lives"

WHERE Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St.

INFO $46.50-$121.50; 212-239-6200; privatelivesbroadway.com

BOTTOM LINE Light, libidinous and not Samantha