It’s odd, but this beloved 1941 comedy seems older than this season’s very much older plays by Shakespeare, Dumas and Schiller, because it has a packaged- entertainment quality that seems to be presented, not happening. This Blithe Spiritis impeccably directed by Brian Bedford, a master of such “high comedy” – which is to say comedy of verbal wit more than provocative or physically amusing action. We do get a laugh out of the ghost of Elvira moving a vase of flowers past the terrified Ruth, who supposedly can see the flowers but not Elvira. But the bigger laughs come from lines like Ruth’s answering her husband’s inquiry, “Anything interesting in the Times this morning?” with, “Don’t be silly, darling.”
Though the play spends more time on comic marital strife than stray spirits, its primary fun is evoked by the unwanted return of Charles’ first wife’s spirit, Elvira, and her flirtatious attitude toward him and rivalry with his current wife, Ruth. But by far, the winning comedy here is provided by eccentric medium Madame Arcati whose séance summons the troublesome spirit and then can’t seem to send her back. Several famed comic actresses have delighted worldwide audiences playing Madame Arcati, but Seana McKenna is unusual in underplaying her eccentricity and seriously presenting first Madame Arcati’s delight at her success, then her indignation in finding that she was not regarded seriously as a professional. McKenna is dryly but hilariously intense in her pursuit of an actual contact with the ‘spirit world’; and she never loses our approval.
Ben Carlson’s Charles is first pompous, then sympathetically frustrated as the husband caught between a present wife and his past one, both formidable prima donnas. Sara Topham transforms herself from playing girlish heroines like Juliet, Peter Pan’s Wendy, Glass Menagerie’s Laura to a sophisticated, very sharp-tongued wife Ruth and is more than a match for Charles or Michelle Giroux’s petulant pixie, Elvira. And as the nervous maid Edith, Susie Burnett manages to move faster than most racing champions as she attacks and intimidates objects to be placed, removed, cleaned or destroyed. She is, of course, topped by the final ghostly joke which almost wrecks the entire stage set.
The production is very handsomely designed and lit, expertly played, and as humanly believable as the outlandish plot will permit. I can’t imagine an audience’s not enjoying it, but I also can’t think that anyone would become passionately involved in it -- as I always do with a performance acted by Brian Bedford.
