PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: Blithe Spirit — Arcati in the Cards
By Harry Haun
16 Mar 2009
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Rupert Everett and Angela Lansbury bow; Jayne Atkinson, Christine Ebersole and Deborah Rush
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
Meet the first nighters who materialized at Broadway's Blithe Spirit.
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Blithe Spirit, which reached Broadway a third time March 15, at the Shubert, was just ending its original engagement here with Clifton Webb and Mildred Natwick in October of '43 when another blithe spirit (also English) was starting up on the other coast.Fact is, Angela Lansbury had to wait till Oct. 16, her 18th birthday, before she could legally have a cigarette on camera with Charles Boyer in "Gaslight."
That's a lot of smoke and fog under the bridge. The crucial thing is that the actress, now 83 and holding up like an octogenarian poster girl, and Noel Coward's so-billed "improbable farce," also in great shape, connected at last — with kinetic sparks.
At the star's insistence, the opening night party was held at Sardi's — a simple matter of throwing open the sidedoors of the Shubert and walking straight across 44th Street — just the spot to celebrate a triumphant return to traditional values that still work.
"It's a very, very hard play to do," opted La Lansbury, who works on it aggressively, reminding us what a first-class character comedienne she is and always was. Here she is Madame Arcati, a dizzy old spiritualist who conjures up for her neighbor Charles (
Rupert Everett) the restless and mischievous spirit of his glamorous first wife, Elvira (
Christine Ebersole) — much to the confusion (and, later, chagrin) of his second, Ruth (
Jayne Atkinson). Coward warned you about "improbable."
A Lansbury Arcati is reason enough to warrant a revival of Blithe Spirit, and 23 producers listed above the title of the show heeded the call to make it happen.
It's a role she has wanted a long time, she admitted. "I didn't realize it'd happen the way it did. It just came out of the blue, y'know. I'm glad I was around to pick it up."
At an age when an actress could kick off her shoes and rest a bit, Lansbury keeps coming back to Broadway. "I know, but once an actress, it's very hard to decide 'I'm not going to do it anymore.' A huge constancy thrown into my life would be gone."
Another octogenarian (just), Michael Blakemore — the only director to win Tonys for directing a play (Copenhagen) and a musical (Kiss Me, Kate) in the same year (2000) — shepherded Lansbury through her most recent Broadway outing, Terrence McNally's Deuce opposite Marian Seldes and now the demanding rigors of Arcati. He said, "It's a part absolutely made for her. I think when it was offered to her, she thought, 'I've got to do this. I've got to do this.' And indeed she has done it, done it brilliantly."
There seems to be a minefield of new laughs in this production, but Blakemore declined to take a bow. "I just tried to do it as it seemed to be required to be done, but I was very lucky with the people I've got doing it. You've got to get the right pace for Coward. You've got to get that nimbleness of mind. Our cast all has that.
"Rupert is a very natural light comedian of that school. He knows how to play Coward, is very open to direction and works very hard. Charles is not an easy part. Unless you have a good Charles, the evening falls apart. It's the longest part, and he's on the most. I think he did well — well, they're all good. Jayne is sensationally good."
Atkinson is the surprising source of much fun in this particular production, playing the poor, put-upon, grounded and rather square Wife Two, Ruth, who finds herself locking horns (if only she could see them) with the lovely apparition of Wife One.
"I have played the part before, under the direction of Joey [John] Tillinger, at the Long Wharf Theatre with my husband, Michel Gill, but it was Michael Blakemore who told me a lot about the beauty of Ruth, what a wonderful character she was. He talked about the humanity and realness of a woman who's in love with her husband whose first wife whom he quite loved has come back, and I'm very upset about this.
"Michael really brought home to me the precision of this character, and through the precision the humor really comes forward. I love to be funny, and this really gives me the chance. I really haven't had that opportunity so I'm in love with this role."
Ebersole makes a gorgeous ghost, in a platinum wig by Paul Huntley and a costume of white gossamer chiffon by Martin Pakledinaz — and, boy, does she work the dress, wafting among the living in Peter J. Davison's handsome, high-ceiling living room, making nasty cracks only her husband hears. She also knocks off a minute of Coward or Irving Berlin in her crystal-clear soprano during the seven scene changes.
Any way you take her in, she's a long way from
Grey Gardens. "I don't have a favorite moment," Ebersole insists. "I love the whole thing. There's not a part I don't love."
Lead producer Jeffrey Richards can trace the genesis of this Blithe Spirit directly to the person playing the part. "Jerry Frankel and I wanted to do a musical with Christine," he recalled, "and she said, 'I don't want to do a musical. I want to do a straight play. What do you think of Woman in Mind by Alan Ayckbourn?' I said, 'Well, I love the play, but it was just done by Stockard Channing.' Then she suggested Regina in The Little Foxes. I said, 'It's a wonderful role, but you're such a great comedienne. Do you know Blithe Spirit?' She didn't know. She read it and loved it and wanted to do it. And I thought Angela would make a great Arcati, and, since she had already worked with Michael Blakemore, I thought it'd be a brilliant idea.
"Rupert had been somebody I had been after at one point when we did a reading of Gore Vidal's Visit to a Small Planet. And for a couple of years I'd tried to get him to do Deathtrap. Finally, the third time was the charm — but I also knew something that a lot of people did not know: Rupert had played Elvira when he was in public school at 10 or 11 when boys played girls' parts. And that enchanted him to do this." Continued...
