Blithe Spirit

Blithe Spirit is a play that regardless of how often they have seen it before theatre goers will enthusiastically return to enjoy it again, partly from a fondness for this Noel Coward gem but also from curiosity regarding the portrayal of the characters.    

This director had been most fortunate with the casting.  All actors being very experienced and ideally chosen for their roles.   It is always refreshing when Madame Arcatti is a product of the director and the actress's imagination rather than a stereotype.  This Madame Arcatti was eccentric and away with the fairies but believable,  the sort of person you might just possibly come across in everyday life.  Elvira was beautiful and ethereal, seductively floating about the stage.    She embodied the character of the person she had been in life, jealous, manipulative, and self-obsessed.   Charles and Ruth Condomine seemed an ideally suited couple until, following the reappearance of Elvira,   the cracks began to show.    The changing relationship was in expert hands and very nicely developed.   Edith, the maid, was played by an actress with some years' experience behind her.   Beautifully vague and frequently forgetting her employer's demands that she should slow down.  The debonair and rather sceptical Doctor Bradman and his over talkative wife were present for the seance.  Whenever I see this play, I am puzzled by this marriage, they seem so ill suited.  This relationship was depicted very well.

The scenes where the ghostly Elvira was present were first rate.  It must have taken some careful rehearsing to so successfully not see her presence without it looking "staged".  The use of the Ouija Board looked good, not contrived, and the reactions of the group were shocked and spontaneous. 

The set was stunning, and an appreciative murmur could be heard from the audience.  The walls a beautiful light shade of terracotta and the furnishings evocative of the twenties and thirties.  The costumes and hairstyles were elegant.  Madame Arcatti's  being bizarre and unconventional.  Lighting and special effects were sympathetically brought into play.  The breakages in the final scene seemingly made to happen by some other worldly force.

It was a treat to see this play by Noel Coward.  He wrote many others most of them requiring elegant sets and beautiful costumes.  Wouldn't it be fun to see them staged more often.

This was a more than usually impressive production. They are to be congratulated.

 

 

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