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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, January 29, 2002

STAGE REVIEW
Dullness dooms 'Blithe Spirit' to an afterlife best forgotten

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Theater Critic

 •  'Blithe Spirit'

• 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 10

• Diamond Head Theatre

• $10-$40; discounts for students, seniors and military

• 733-0274

Martini glasses, cigarette holders and the sophisticated cadence of British upper-class dialogue: Surely it must be Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit." Surely it must be funny. Surely it must.

Continue to hope, but be prepared for nearly three hours of a 1941 drawing-room comedy of manners that fails to engage despite a fumbling séance, a sexy, murderous ghost and a dithering, delightful medium. It's an absurd fantasy, dashed off by a master of style and grace, but not one of Coward's best plays.

Coward's characters are built on words, words, words — arching, brittle and craftily constructed miniature mansions. The people who live inside may lead colorful lives, but always behave as if they know an audience is looking through the window.

Living such a life requires control, impeccable articulation and a genuine freedom to be larger than one's self.

Unfortunately, that never happens.

The cast in this Diamond Head Theatre revival, engineered by director Scott Rogers, chugs along like the brave little engine that could. The rest of us slowly nod off in our seats. Lulled by the steady rhythms, we lose our grip on the action and vaguely expect that when we get somewhere, somebody will wake us.

The setting is the elegant parlor in the country home of writer Charles Condomine and his second wife, Ruth — nicely detailed for the DHT stage by designer Patrick M. Kelly. Charles has invited guests for dinner, including Madame Arcati — a local medium who claims the ability to call up dead spirits. His aim is to use and discredit the character in a new novel.

But Madame Arcati is improbably successful when the ghost of Charles' first wife, Elvira, appears and decides she's going to stay for a while. While Ruth and Elvira develop an immediate dislike for each other, Charles finds he likes the arrangement. However, there is simply one wife too many, and mayhem takes over the previously sedate home.

Performances range from fair to nearly there, and are characterized by relief any time we don't have to strain to hear and understand the accented dialogue.

Mark Stitham plays Charles and does a good job with a mildly wry, solid central character who is generally upstaged by the women around him.

The dominating female roles are headed by Alexandra Horn as a bubbly Madame Arcati, a bundle of curls and layered costumes designed by Sukey Dickinson. She's part fairy godmother and part private investigator as she stumbles across the shifting border of the afterlife. Horn gives it the right tone of fresh discovery.

Stefanie Anderson keeps Elvira playful and infuriating, suggesting that the afterlife may be just as exasperating as the present. But the performance seems largely built around her filmy negligee and semi-recumbent postures, punctuated mainly by fits of petulance.

Luka Lyman's Ruth is rigidly stiff-upper-lip and brittle as her china teacup. Ultimately, one wonders what she's doing in Charles' house.

But Lisa Marie Ezra as Edith, the compulsive maid, demonstrates that the purest delight can arise from the smallest roles. Her remarkably successful body language as she struggles to physically restrain herself makes her the focal point whenever she is on stage.

John Hunt and Roberta Barclay fill out the roles as Charles' other dinner guests, who contribute to the exposition but do little to advance the action.

Rogers adds some curious and largely unsuccessful staging choices. He uses unintelligible pre-recorded dialogue to bridge the scene breaks and brings on a pair of Ghost Dancers to liven up those dead spots. But after the initial surprise, a pair of swirling dancers in mummy rags seem invasive in the Coward script.

Ultimately, we'd like this "Blithe Spirit" more if it were pared down and tightened up. Play it full speed ahead and damn the exposition.