This content was published: March 8, 2013. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Blithe Spirit
Winter 2013
“A Spirited Comedy” by Noel Coward
Charles, a novelist, wishes to learn about the occult for a novel he is writing, and he arranges for an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, to hold a séance at his house. At the séance, she inadvertently summons Charles’s first wife, Elvira, who has been dead for seven years! Madame Arcati leaves after the séance, unaware that she has summoned Elvira. Only Charles can see or hear Elvira, but his second wife, Ruth, does not believe that Elvira exists until a floating vase is handed to her out of thin air. The ghostly Elvira makes hilarious and desperate, efforts to undo Charles’s current marriage. She finally sabotages his car so that he will join her in the spirit world, but it is Ruth rather than Charles who drives off and is killed. Ruth’s ghost immediately comes back for revenge on Elvira, and though Charles cannot at first see Ruth, he can see that Elvira is being chased and tormented, and his house is in uproar. He calls Madame Arcati back to exorcise both of the spirits, but instead of banishing them, she materializes Ruth. With both his dead wives now fully visible, and neither of them in the best of tempers, Charles, together with Madame Arcati, goes through séance after séance and spell after spell to try to exorcise them, and at last Madame Arcati succeeds. Charles is left seemingly in peace, but Madame Arcati, hinting that the ghosts may still be around unseen, warns him that he should go far away as soon as possible. Charles leaves at once, but not before his wives have one last spectacular surprise for him!
Performances
- Fridays, March 8 and 15, at 7:30pm
- Saturdays, March 9 and 16, at 7:30pm
- Thursday, March 14, special pay-what-you-will matinee at 11am