A fascination with life after death
In 1911, celebrated medium Anna Eva Fay held a public séance at the London Coliseum. She invited audience members to ask questions that she claimed to answer by channeling the spirits of the dead. In the audience was Violet Coward, whose 11-year-old son, Noël, had just begun his professional stage career.
Violet asked the medium if she had made the right choice putting Noël on the stage. According to Fay, and those in the afterlife, the answer was: “Keep him where he is! He is a great talent and will have a wonderful career!”
The message, or lucky guess, proved accurate and Noël Coward became an acclaimed playwright, actor and entertainer. One of his most successful and enduring plays is Blithe Spirit which The Algarveans Theatre group is bringing to the stage in Lagoa’s Humorfest in March. Completed in just six days, this “light comedy about death”, as Coward described it, premiered at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1941 when Britain faced desperate times during World War II. A dark comedy about ghosts and the afterlife might have seemed controversial, but the play would run for nearly 2,000 performances, a record not broken until Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap in 1957.
“Watch out … she’s up to something!” Angela Theobold as Ruth, Tracey Christiansen as Elvira and Trevor Vasey as Charles Condomine in Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit is about writer Charles Condomine, haunted both figuratively and literally by the ghost of his first wife Elvira, who has been summoned during a séance by eccentric medium Madame Arcati. The mayhem which ensues as Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles’ marriage to his second wife Ruth, who can neither see nor hear the ghost, is driven by the acerbic wit and barbed banter that are the trademarks of Coward’s humour. “I shall be forever grateful,” he said, “for the almost psychic gift that enabled me to write Blithe Spirit during the darkest days of the war.”
Over the 80-plus years since its debut, the play has been revived many times, including in two film versions, several television versions, radio broadcasts, and a musical entitled High Spirits. Theatre greats such as Gielgud and Pinter have directed versions, and it was most recently revived in 2021, starring Jennifer Saunders as Madame Arcati.
Now the seasoned actor and director Frank Remiatte is directing a production for The Algarveans with a cast of familiar and new faces, including three American thespians who are rounding their vowels to embrace those pithy English witticisms. Frank will ensure that his cast delivers Coward’s acerbic ripostes with perfect precision. He is equally keen to retain the comedy’s period look: “That’s part of the play’s charm,” he says, “together with our fascination with life-after-death, a well-plotted farce and Coward’s impeccable dialogue.”
Blithe Spirit is playing at the Carlos do Carmo Auditorium, Lagoa, for three nights on 13, 14 and 15 March at 7:30 pm. Tickets at €15 will soon be available from BOL.PT or in person at Auditório Carlos do Carmo, Convento de S. José in Lagoa and at Munícipio de Lagoa – Balcão Único. Tickets are also available at Worten and FNAC shops or from their online websites.
