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Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward

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Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward STAGE NOTES prepared by Bridget Grace Sheaff Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward Glossary for Blithe Spirit ................................................................................................................. 2 Spiritualism: Origins and Effects ................................................................................................... 10 History of the Bicycle .................................................................................................................... 11 To A Skylark .................................................................................................................................. 13 About the Play .............................................................................................................................. 16 About the Playwright .................................................................................................................... 18 Page | 1 Glossary for Blithe Spirit PLACE Budleigh Salterton: A small town on the coast in east Devon, England, 15 miles south east of Exeter. Canterbury: An historic English cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour. Exmouth: A port town, civil parish and seaside resort in East Devon, England, sited on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exeter. Folkestone: A port town located on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. Hythe: A small coastal market town on the edge of Romney Marsh, in the District of Shepway (derived from Sheep Way) on the south coast of Kent. The word Hythe or Hithe is an Old English word meaning Haven or Landing Place. Kent: A county in South East England, and one of the home counties. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of Medway. Kent has a nominal border with the French department of Pas-de-Calais halfway through the Channel Tunnel, as well as a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The county also borders Greater London to the North West near the towns of Swanley and Dartford, Surrey near Westerham and East Sussex near Tunbridge Wells. Maidstone is its county town and historically Rochester and Canterbury have been accorded city status, though only the latter still holds it. Nottingham: A city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands of England, and County town of the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire. Page | 2 Southsea: A seaside resort located in Portsmouth at the southern end of Portsea Island in the county of Hampshire in England. Southsea is within a mile of Portsmouth's city centre. Southsea suffered badly from bombing in World War II. In particular the main shopping centre, Palmerston Road, was almost completely destroyed. Sudbury: A small market town in the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the River Stour near the Essex border, and is 60 miles (97 km) north-east of London. Vladivostok: A city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia, located at the head of the Golden Horn Bay, not far from Russia's borders with China and North Korea. PEOPLE Black Douglas (c. 1286 – 1330) Sir James Douglas (also known as Good Sir James and the Black Douglas), was a Scottish warlord, landowner, and guerilla fighter. Douglas was one of the chief commanders of the Wars of Scottish Independence. Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Brahms composed for piano, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, and for voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works; he worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim. Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished. Cagliostro (2 June 1743 – 26 August 1795) Count Alessandro di Cagliostro was the alias of the occultist Giuseppe Balsamo. During his period as a novice in the order, Balsamo learned chemistry as well as a series of spiritual rites. In 1764, when he was seventeen, he convinced Vincenzo Marano—a wealthy goldsmith—of the existence of a hidden treasure buried several hundred years prior at Mount Pellegrino. The young man's knowledge of the occult, Marano reasoned, would be valuable in preventing the duo from being attacked by magical creatures guarding the treasure. In preparation for the expedition to Mount Pellegrino, however, Balsamo requested seventy pieces of silver from Marano. Cagliostro is said to be one of the greatest figures in occult, although since the late 19th century he has been considered by many to be a charlatan. Many wild stories have grown up around him, which have obscured the true facts of his life, which are more unbelievable than the fiction. Page | 3 Devant (22 February 1868 – 13 October 1941) David Devant was an English magician, shadowgraphist and film exhibitor. He was born David Wighton in Holloway, London. Milbourne Christopher in his textbook on conjuring history, Panorama of Magic, says that: "David Devant, most British magicians agree, was the master performer of his time". Devant was a fixture in British entertainment and it was he who was selected to represent "the world of wizardry" at King George V's command performance at the Palace Theatre in London on 1 July 1912. Devant made headlines not long after when an escaped mental patient cornered him in London and insisted that the conjurer pull coins from the air as he had been seen to do on stage. Devant did so until attendants arrived from the hospital to take the disturbed spectator away Genghiz Kahn (1162?– August 1227) Genghis Khan born Temüjin, was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his demise. Gil de Retz (September 1405 – 26 October 1440) Gilles de Montmorency-LavalBaron de Rais, was a lord from Brittany, Anjou and Poitou, a leader in the French army, and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known for his (disputed) reputation and later conviction as a presumed serial killer of children. In 1434/1435, he retired from military life, depleted his wealth by staging an extravagant theatrical spectacle of his own composition, and was accused of dabbling in the occult. After 1432 Gilles was accused of engag- ing in a series of child murders, with victims possibly numbering in the hundreds. The killings came to an end in 1440, when a violent dispute with a clergyman led to an ecclesiastical investi- gation which brought the crimes to light, and attributed them to Gilles. At his trial the parents of missing children in the surrounding area and Gilles' own confederates in crime testified against him. Gilles was condemned to death and hanged at Nantes on 26 October 1440. Julius Caesar A Roman general, statesman, Consul, and notable author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. Maskelyne: (22 December 1839 – 18 May 1917) John Nevil Maskelyne was an English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet, along with many other Victorian-era devices. Maskelyne was a member of The Magic Circle and, like Harry Houdini, tried to dispel the notion of supernatural powers. To this end, in 1914, Maskelyne founded the Occult Committee whose remit was to "investigate claims to super- natural power and to expose fraud". In particular, the committee attempted to prove that the Indian rope trick has never been performed. The writings of Maskelyne on Spiritualism and Theosophy were included in the book The Supernatural? (1891) with the Page | 4 psychiatrist Lionel Weatherly (1852-1940). It was an early text in the field of anomalistic psychology and offered rational explanations for occult and Spiritualistic practices, paranormal phenomena and religious experiences. Merlin Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in Arthurian legend. Mesmer (May 23, 1734 – March 5, 1815) Franz Anton Mesmer was a German physician with an interest in astronomy, who theorised that there was a natural energetic transference that occurred between all animated and inanimate objects that he called animal magnetism, sometimes later referred to as mesmerism. The theory attracted a wide following between about 1780 and 1850, and continued to have some influence until the end of the century. In 1843 the Scottish physician James Braid proposed the term hypnosis for a technique derived from animal magnetism; today this is the usual meaning of mesmerism. Michelangelo (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Rachmaninoff (1 April 1873 – 28 March 1943) Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. SPIRITUALISM GLOSSARY “Bell and Book” The phrase "bell, book, and candle" refers to a method of ex-communication for one who had committed a particularly
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