A little levity, please

The Public Theatre raises Spirits

By Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit plays through October 21 at The Public Theatre in Lewiston. Call (207) 782-3200.

LOOK DEEP INTO MY BALL: Helen Coxe, Mary Baird, and Diego Arciniegas contact the other side.

There is a reason why theater’s twin faces of comedy and tragedy go together. It’s the same reason a classic tragedy like Hamlet contains moments of caustic put-downs and lewd suggestion; the reason why some of us find ourselves wanting to sneak out of work to see Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back again after reading about anthrax and Afghanistan. We need to laugh. In a time when you don’t have to look far for tragedy, we need comedy more than ever.

There’s little that’s lighter or more farcical than Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, and The Public Theatre’s production is laugh-out loud funny. As with many of Coward’s later plays, Spirit relies on poking holes in polished English snobbery for its guffaws; showing the audience that even the man who holds his nose up the highest has shit streaks in his underwear.

In this case the man holding his nose up in the air is novelist Charles Condomine, played by Boston Publick Theatre’s Diego Arciniegas with a sneer, a dinner jacket, perfect hair, and a martini from the opening curtain. At the outset, other than instructing the help, Charles and his very particular second wife, Ruth (Helen Coxe), ready themselves for a night with the town eccentric and self-proclaimed medium, Madame Arcati, so that Charles can get some materials for a new mystery story and make fun of Arcati behind her back.

The Condomines and their friends Dr. and Mrs. Bradman play with Arcati, as when she says spirits are trying to contact Charles, and he quips, “Tell them to leave a message.” Then the Madame’s ridiculous spirit-summoning dance — think of Dana Carvey’s old Church Lady routine on SNL combined with a pseudo mystical-liturgical belly dance — actually leads to the entrance of Charles’s gorgeous deceased wife Elvira (Rebecca DuMaine), and only he can see or hear her. Thus, the Condomines’ little world of bone-dry martinis, cucumber sandwiches on silver trays, and ultimate propriety is upended.

Arciniegas believably portrays Charles’s fraying confidence as he’s faced with what he never imagined was possible, and Ruth predictably begins to doubt his sanity. Once Charles convinces her who has shown up, Ruth’s jealousy over Elvira’s beauty, a jealousy that had been significant even with Elvira in the grave, reaches hysterical proportions. As Ruth, Coxe lays into Charles and shows a ferocious territorial instinct that was previously hidden underneath her slight, proper exterior.

A hilarious change occurs in the vain Charles as well. He begins to appreciate the fawning attention of his astral visitor, along with the fact that Ruth can’t hear Elvira’s sly seductions or her comments about Ruth’s rigidity. The audience sees that his attraction to his first wife is greater than his earlier protestations indicated.

We also see that Ruth is not easily licked. She tries to shame Madame Arcati (Mary Baird) into helping her exorcise Elvira, while guarding the suddenly unmannered appearance of her household from Dr. and Mrs. Bradman like a rabid Great Dane. It becomes apparent that it’s not so much her love for Charles as her love for the house and position that come with it that is most important to her.

In this manner, Coward’s script and Janet Mitchko’s direction keep you guessing in a way that makes for engaging, fast-paced comedy. Just when things start to look predictable and you feel like you have the characters figured out, another layer of Charles, Ruth, and Elvira is revealed, and it isn’t pretty.

As with Charles and Ruth, Elvira shows herself to be far from the angel — at least as Victoria’s Secret would envision one — she appears to be. Once her plot to speed her former husband’s ascent to the spirit world, and the secrets she kept while alive, become clear to him, Charles begins to see her with the same tired eye with which he looks on Ruth. All in all, it doesn’t say much for repressed English marriages, but it makes for lively shifts of plot and perspective.

By the time the manic Madame Arcati returns for once last séance, you have an idea that a few final unexpected things are going to happen, so the surprise is lost. Suffice to say, the maid shows herself to be more than she seems to be, and her sudden involvement in the plot and the spirit world is an all-too-convenient way to end — and one of Coward’s few missteps. But, I’ve got to be honest, by the time the end came, I didn’t care if it was a bit predictable — I laughed anyway.

Walking out of The Public Theatre, I was reminded of how good it can feel to laugh, of the power of silliness to make us look at things differently. Was I changed by Blithe Spirit? No, probably not. But then a few hundred people laughing together in a little theater in Lewiston is no small feat either.

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc can be reached at riverbetweenus@hotmail.com.