Blithe Spirit opens

By Grace Renshaw

A Spirited Revival

Noel Coward wrote Blithe Spirit in six short days in 1941. The prolific Coward—who wrote 60 produced plays and more than 300 songs, screenplays and short stories during his lengthy career as a playwright and actor—had sworn at the outbreak of World War II that he would not write another play until the war ended. But when it became apparent the war was not destined to end quickly, he cleverly hedged his bets. “Of course,” he told an interviewer, “I cannot guarantee that a time will not come in the war when suddenly, something goes snap, and cascades of bright witticisms tumble out of me like coins from a fruit machine when the three lemons come together.”

Blithe Spirit, Coward indeed hit the jackpot, offering up a light, escapist comedy to blitzed London audiences who needed nothing better than a good laugh. While A.C.T. I’s current production at the Darkhorse Theater has a few shortcomings, it also offers Nashville audiences plenty of good laughs and a chance to meet the kind of characters only Noel Coward could create.

Coward wrote himself into many of his plays, and the central character of Blithe Spirit, Charles Condomine, is a smooth, successful writer with Coward’s signature flair for comic songwriting. But the playwright doesn’t flatter himself—his characters are like peevish, overgrown children, firing telling little barbs at each other with great relish. With servants to do all the mundane chores, Charles and his priggish wife, Ruth, are the ’40s equivalent of childless Yuppies. Their biggest concern is whether they can persuade their dinner guest, the eccentric Madame Arcati, to hold a seance at the small dinner party they’ve planned for the evening. While neither Charles nor Ruth believes Madame’s tales of contact with the spirit world, both find the prospect of a seance “amusing.” Only too willing to oblige, Madame Arcati provides much more than amusement: She conjures up the ghost of Charles’ petulant and sensual first wife, Elvira.

Noel Coward’s wit lies not so much in his phrasing, but in his rapid-fire dialogue, in which characters toss off the perfect rejoinders again and again. Under director Richard Seay, Gregg Colson, as Charles, and Caroline Newcomb, as Ruth, fire out Coward’s witty repartee too rapidly. They speak in a clipped ping-pong staccato, much like the unlikable characters in David Mamet’s plays. Coward’s witty language demands great comic timing, and the A.C.T. I production could get more laughs than it already does by encouraging Colson and Newcomb, who both look their parts, to punctuate Coward’s script with a few more well-timed pauses and piercing glances. Few born-and-bred Americans can sustain a convincing upper-crust British accent, and Seay might also fare better by encouraging his actors not to attempt one.

The A.C.T. I production deserved its packed house on opening night, however, due in part to Maryanna Clarke’s hilarious performance as the unabashedly strange Madame Arcati. Clarke has a rip-roaring good time with her character—whose personality finds its perfect reflection in Caryn White’s outrageous costumes—and the audience can’t help but have a good time as well. Val Perkins plays a good straight man as Dr. Bradman, a skeptic who only grudgingly participates in Madame Arcati’s seance, while C.A. Carson gives an overly obnoxious performance as his silly, dithering wife. As Edith, the Condomines’ maid, Elizabeth Bell plays her character with exaggerated dottiness and provides a comic counterpoint to Colson’s and Newcomb’s stuffiness as Charles and Ruth.

Gregg Colson’s Charles springs to life when Elvira, played with plenty of menace but not enough subtlety by Kay Ayers, appears onstage. Suddenly confronted with two demanding wives, Charles reacts totally out of self-interest: He’s concerned only with the discomfort the situation creates for him. It’s at this point that we see the irony of the play’s title—Charles is, in fact, the real blithe spirit.

Wendy Overlock’s set is suitably stylish, although an Art Deco couch and chair would make the set as fun to look at as Coward’s bantering dialogue is to hear. Despite its faults, A.C.T. I’s revival of Blithe Spirit is an entertaining evening—and the perfect prelude to Halloween.

A.C.T. I’s revival of Noel Coward’sBlithe Spirit plays at the Darkhorse Theater through Oct. 8. Tickets are $10. Call 780-2909 for reservations.

A.C.T. I’s revival of Noel Coward’sBlithe Spirit plays at the Darkhorse Theater through Oct. 8. Tickets are $10. Call 780-2909 for reservations.