Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey presents ‘Blithe Spirit’

Beyond the bon mots

Successful interpretations of this 1941 classic — and of all Coward plays in general — look beyond merely landing the myriad bon mots that pepper the text. They create a portrait of the entire social milieu the playwright, actor, and raconteur (1899-1973) knew so well. Victoria Mack, an STNJ stalwart, understands this; her Blithe Spirit sets the right tone before a single line is spoken.

Charlie Calvert’s well-appointed drawing-room set, opening out to a lush English garden, situates the audience in the comfortably privileged world of Charles and Ruth Condomine (Brent Harris and Kate MacCluggage), a fashionable society couple living in the English countryside. Harris and MacCluggage make their first entrances dressed for dinner, and Hugh Hanson’s costumes drip with upper-crust panache.

The humor of Blithe Spirit comes through almost immediately, as Madame Arcati (Tina Stafford, having a ball) enters the scene. A local medium and expert on mysticism, she’s been invited for dinner and a séance by Charles, a novelist researching the occult. In the midst of their revelry, Madame Arcati conjures the ghost of Charles’s first wife, Elvira (Susan Maris, radiant and charming), who has unfinished business with her former husband.

The resultant hijinks leave the audience in stitches, as Charles’s late and living wives vie for his attention. But Mack’s keen directorial eye illuminates aspects of the play I’ve rarely seen explored in past productions.

Echoes of war

Coward wrote Blithe Spirit in less than a week’s time, after escaping the London Blitz. In many ways, it’s a play about disorientation: the Condomines’ perfectly ordered world is thrown into chaos by Elvira’s unwanted visitation, just as German forces threatened England’s sovereignty and stability during World War II. It’s a detail that sometimes gets lost in more routine productions of the play.

Here, Mack puts this psychic dread front and center, infusing the comic antics with a sense of uneasiness. Maris plays Elvira as an impish lord of misrule, reveling in her ability to cause disorder and palpable harm. Her terrorization of Edith, the Condomines’ simple-minded maid, played with slapstick flair by Bethany Kay, is a production highlight.

Horrid husbands?

But it’s Ruth who truly suffers at Elvira’s hand, a fact MacCluggage’s superb performance deftly communicates. Ruth’s exterior may seem drab, but she anchors the play — a fact often lost by directors who focus the action around the more spirited elements. Here, she rightly remains the center of attention, doing what she can to save herself and her marriage from their astral interlocutor.

Coward also tacitly explores the unsavory elements that pervade well-made marriages, as well as the belittling treatment women of the time expected from men. This often comes through in the thorny relationship of Dr. and Mrs. Bradman, intimate friends of Charles and Ruth whose polished veneer barely hides a groundswell of resentment.

Ames Adamson and especially Monette Magrath bring off these roles with more spice than I’ve ever seen. Magrath’s subtly disgusted delivery of her final line to her husband — “You are horrid, George” — could cut glass.

Harris also plays Charles with less suavity and more sharp edges than usual. The interpretation works: throughout the first act, before Ruth believes that he can really see Elvira, it almost seems like he’s gaslighting her. And when Elvira sets her sights on cosmic revenge, there’s little question he deserves it.

STNJ’s Blithe Spirit still has a kick like a dry martini, but it also mines the familiar play for layers often unexplored. Instead of remaining earthbound, it soars.