[Woody’s [rating: 4]
Appearing in touring company of “Blithe Spirit” are (from left) Sandra Shipley, Charles Edwards, Susan Louise O’Connor, star Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcati, Charlotte Parry and Simon Jones. Photo by Joan Marcus.
- Susan Louise O’Connor (left) shines in small role alongside Charles Edwards and Charlotte Parry in “Blithe Spirit.” Photo by Joan Marcus.
I thought deceased playwright Noël Coward was so yesterday.
And I feared 89-year-old Angela Lansbury might fit into that pigeonhole, too.
But “Blithe Spirit,” which originally debuted on Broadway in 1941, proves my pre-show presumptions were way off.
All three are charming — despite their antiquity.
In the small but crucial role of second-generation medium Madame Arcati (at the Golden Gate Theatre), Lansbury is an absolute rib-tickling marvel.
It’s a part that earned her a Tony Award for the 2009 Broadway revival.
Opening night in San Francisco, I found the character actor’s physical comedy — as well as her ability to zoom her vocal elevator from squeaky to bass and back again — delightful.
But major kudos also are due Susan Louise O’Connor, whose comic antics in a secondary part are honed so finely they virtually steal the show.
As maid Edith, she manages to transform her earliest lines of “Yes, mum,” “Yes, mum” and “Yes, mum” into comedic diamonds.
Laugh-aloud gems.
She’s so good at it, and in becoming a mousey creature stuck alternately in fifth and slo-mo gears, she almost outshines Lansbury in the slapstick-with-pinpoint-timing department.
Almost.
Lansbury had the opening night audience in her palm before the curtain went up.
Director Michael Blakemore deserves recognition, though, for acutely and cutely layering the manifold moments of shtick — and for making at least the first half of a protracted 115-minute two-act play move swiftly.
I can offer shout-outs, too, to Charles Edwards as an ultra-correct, ultra-British Charles Condomine, who asks the medium to conduct a séance in his living room so he can use it in his novel, and Jemima Rooper as Elvira, the churlish, lethal dead wife he summons despite remembering “how morally untidy she was.”
Such phraseology may seem archaic in print, but when used on stage it holds up.
Astonishingly well.
“Blithe Spirit,” which followed otherworldly films such as “Topper” and “The Ghost Goes West” into the public’s imagination and favor, allegedly was written in a week.
But Coward’s velocity doesn’t show through.
His wit does.
Adding to the onstage fun are old-fashioned projections of scene names and action, accompanied by screechy sounds from vintage recordings.
As well as ectoplasmic special effects that peak just before the final curtain.
On a personal note, repeated use of Irving Berlin’s “Always,” ancient enough to have been my parent’s favorite song, hit me right in the labonza.
Angela Lansbury’s 70-year career includes harvesting five Tonys, six Golden Globes and an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement. She starred on Broadway in “Mame,” “Gypsy” and “Sweeney Todd.”
She’s best known, of course, for playing Jessica Fletcher in “Murder, She Wrote.”
Which I never saw.
In spite of the original series being on TV for 12 years (and the cable re-runs still going strong).
She first awed me, rather, in a 1962 Cold War film thriller, “The Manchurian Candidate,” while playing the conniving mother of a potential political assassin.
Her “Blithe Spirit” characterization couldn’t be more dissimilar.
She portrayed Madame Arcati as a bent, cantankerous, peculiar old lady with a distinctive shuffle. But when it came time to take her bows, the nearly nonagenarian’s body was suddenly erect, and she was smiling and sprightly.
Why’d I like her and this play so much?
Maybe because too many shows nowadays are heavy, heavy, heavy.
In contrast, “Blithe Spirit,” which Coward appropriately subtitled “An Improbable Farce,” didn’t require` me to think about it, chew on it, discuss it, worry about it or dissect it.
All I needed to do was sit back and enjoy it.
It and Lansbury, that is.
Last year, the living legend made headlines when Queen Elizabeth aptly made her a dame.
She’d earned the honor.
And clearly, to steal a line from a hit Broadway show she didn’t star in, she’s still up there in the footlights proving “there is nothing like a dame.”
Especially a spry old one.
“Blithe Spirit” will play at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco, through Feb. 1. Night performances Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $45 to $175 (subject to change). Information: (888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.
Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net or check out his blog at www.vitalitypress.com/
