By Harry Haun
16 Mar 2009

Buy this Limited Collector's Edition

The craftiest little scene-stealer on the premises is Edith the maid, who comes in two speeds — lunge and lope. She is played by a Broadway-debuting Susan Louise O'Connor (this year's Una O'Connor in the comic-maid department). She welled up with tears when Marian Seldes came over to her and complimented her portrayal.

"Everything fantastic that you see is Michael Blakemore, a complete comic genius," said O'Connor, quick to give credit where credit is properly due. "All that, and he's witty and smart and charming. Honestly, I'm completely smitten. He was fantastic."

One bit of physical business in the second act — A Maid's Way With a Chair — draws not only immediate laughter but applause of appreciation as well. "Michael had the idea. We had a bunch of things that we worked on for a long time with the chair, and then there were different chairs. Recently, The Chair Moment has evolved into what we have now. As a general rule, if you see anything hilarious, that's Michael."

Also bullish on Blakemore is Deborah Rush, who plays the doctor's foot-in-mouth spouse. She last worked with Blakemore a critical quarter of a century ago when she turned in a Tony-nominated performance of a myopic, ditzy actress in Noises Off. She met her future husband, Chip Cronkite, during the run, and he would meet her nightly at the stage door. Consequently, as she sees it, "Michael is, like, the arbiter of my life. Without him, I wouldn't have this husband and these two boys — and now this wonderful new job. He's so brilliant. I'm lucky to have such a nice friend."

Pakledinaz, whose costumes are in the early 1940s mode, was particularly proud of the illusion of flight built into his chiffon creation which allows Ebersole's Elvira's to float about the room a dream walking. "We found out that less was more with that dress," he recalled. "Actually, we had more dress, and we just realized that all she needed to do was have that pillar. I think it was Christine's idea to just throw a length across front to back, and then I made it a little more wearable. By the time we were done, it had turned into angel wings—and it turned into a great way of her never being able to touch Charles' hands, which I had never thought of before.

"I don't know that I have ever had a show where I've worked so much with so many smart actors. We actually agreed to have an open conversation all of the way. We almost never used drawings. We just used time in the fitting room."

His veddy veddy proper attire for Ruth is a real example of costuming for character. "I wanted Ruth to be solid, solid like the institution of England. We actually think Jayne Atkinson looks very much like one of the Windsor women. She looks British, so I wanted to make incredible strong simple statements. One of my favorites for her is the wool plaid jacket and the simple skirt. She looks like a young Elizabeth."

Simon Jones, the Bridey of "Brideshead Revisited" and a Blakemore player since Benefactors, settles into Blithe Spirit as a country doctor given to house calls, what with all the ghastly, ghostly accidents going on.

It will be an interesting chapter in the book he may get around to writing one day, "Divas I Have Worked With" — so far: a TV Elvira (Lauren Bacall, his co-star in Coward's Waiting in the Wings) and one of the touring Legends (Joan Collins, his partner in Private Lives).

"Angela is incomparable," Jones said of his latest iconic encounter. "She is the nicest person you can imagine. Which is not to say all the other divas weren't the nicest persons imaginable either. But, then, Angela is particularly nice."

Jim Dale, Donna Murphy and Edward Hibbert posed in a shot with Jones' towering 19-year-old, Tim, who was born while they were co-starring with his father in Privates on Parade. Another accidental Roundabout reunion: Jessica Molaskey, Michael Cumpsty and Mary Beth Peil collided in the Shubert lobby for the first time since they did the last Sunday in the Park with George. And Peter Bartlett and David Pittu, both of Never Gonna Dance and What's That Smell, were part of the Marty Party (as in Martin Pakledinaz) along with choreographer Mark Morris.

Other first-nighters included Polly Bergen, columnist Liz Smith, Accent on Youth's David Hyde Pierce, "SNL"-ex Rachel Dratch (now Broadway-bound in Minsky's, "this fall, I think"), Enter Laughing book-writer Joseph Stein (whose Take Me Along played the Shubert) and his novelist son, Harry Stein, theatre documentarian Rick McKay, Isabel Keating (feeling a Broadway musical coming on next season), Tom Santopietro (whose massive new tome for St. Martin's Press, "Sinatra in Hollywood," is selling briskly), Shawn Elliott (keeping himself busy "chasing my four-year-old"), playwright David Ives, Astaire Award-winning dancer Michael Arnold (now in South Pacific), Randy Harrison (who'll be joining Olympia Dukakis, Mark Blum and Jonathan Groff in The Singing Forest next month at The Public), Susan Rice (who wrote a Cybill Shepherd movie for the Hallmark channel, "Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith," airing this spring), Harvey Evans (just back from a Jacksonville, FL Hello, Dolly! opposite Pamela Myers: "Dolly! is part of my life because I spent two years in my youth doing Barnaby, so to play Horace J. Vandergelder was a treat beyond belief. I tried to channel David Burns."), Penny Fuller, Elizabeth Ashley (fresh from an August: Osage County matinee: "That's the way it is — show show show!"), Kurt Warner, Allegra Versace, Actors' Equity's Joe Chiplock, The Public's Oskar Eustis, Tamara Tunie, Richard Thomas and son Montana (that's right), director-choreographers Kathleen Marshall and Rob Ashford (the latter, back from London where he was casting around for his A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar — only Rachel Weisz is aboard now), Roger Rees with Rick Elice, scripter Anthony Barrile (who is writing a Ben Stiller movie, "Showstopper," with Elton John who will produce it), Tovah Feldshuh (bracing for a Broadway run at the Walter Kerr in Irena's Vow "two weeks from tonight"), John Gallagher Jr., Cheyenne Jackson, Zeljko Ivanek, Laila Robins (partaking of episodic TV, playing Gabriel Byrne's high-school sweetheart on "Treatment" and working with Tina Fey on "30 Rock" while "waiting for the next play") with Robert Cuccioli (doing Dickinson for Paper Mill Playhouse's 1776 April 15-May 17, having just finished co-starring with Jane Alexander in Pittsburgh in A Moon To Dance By, which he hopes will transfer here in the near future) and the star's producer-brother Edgar Lansbury.

Another authentic Elvira roamed the Shubert and Sardi's on opening night — Tammy Grimes, who played the part under Coward's direction in 1964's High Spirits, "an improbable musical comedy" made of Blithe Spirit by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray. "I love the picture of Noel Coward at the end of the play tonight — it made me cry," Grimes admitted. "I love the show. I thought it was a wonderful production of a great play. I loved Angela, and I loved the man who played Charles, and I always love Simon — and the rest of the cast was marvelous."

She was not alone in this. Reviews from other newly contented customers ricocheted off the walls of Sardi's. "I loved the fact they all trusted Noel, and I thought it was beautifully directed," opted cabaret impresario Donald Smith. Said Seldes: "I think it could have been written yesterday. You know, people say 'a revival' as if it was an old play. It was all new and all wonderful." Even card-carrying critic Rex Reed weighed in: "It's a great feeling to see this kind of theatre again — a beautiful set, intelligent dialogue and real laughs. It's the kind of theatre you don't see much anymore. As they used to write on preview cards: 'Give us more like this!'"

A "Psychic Consultant" is credited to the show — one Paula Roberts, "The English Psychic." True to her billing, she prognosticates in crisp Queen's English, predicting a hit here for all hands and further foreseeing an award "attached" to the show. "I can't tell if it's for the play or for one of the people in it," she said — so stay tuned.

The cast of Blithe Spirit at the opening night curtain call.
photo by Aubrey Reuben

View article on single page

Previous Page   1 | 2 Next Page