Insights A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival Blithe Spirit The articles in this study guide are not meant to mirror or interpret any productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the plays (in any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters, at times) may differ dramatically from what is ultimately produced on the Festival’s stages. The Study Guide is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720. Bruce C. Lee, communications director and editor; Phil Hermansen, art director. Copyright © 2011, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print The Study Guide, as long as you do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. For more information about Festival education programs: Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street Cedar City, Utah 84720 435-586-7880 www.bard.org. Cover photo: Arthur Hanket (left) as Charles, Stephanie Erb as Elvira, and Carole Healey as Ruth in Blithe Spirit, 2004 Contents BlitheInformation Spirit on the Play Synopsis 4 Characters 5 About the Playwright 6 Scholarly Articles on the Play An Improbable Farce 7 Some Sort of Genius 9 Noel Coward as the Mirror of a Generation 10 Utah Shakespeare Festival 3 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Synopsis: Blithe Spirit Charles Condomine, a novelist, and his wife, Ruth, have invited their friends Dr. and Mrs. Bradman to join them for drinks and dinner with a local clairvoyant, Madame Arcati. Charles is plan- ning a novel about a homicidal spiritualist and wants to observe the behavior of Madame Arcati during a séance after dinner. The Bradmans arrive, and the four friends discuss Madame Arcati, sure that she will be a harmless fraud. They are interrupted when Madame Arcati arrives, dinner is served, and the séance begins. Much to the surprise of the two couples, there are supernatural manifestations--the table trembles, Madame Arcati falls into a trance, and Charles hears the voice of Elvira, his first wife, whom he loved dearly but who died several years ago. Frightened, he wakes Madame Arcati, and the party breaks up. As Charles shows the Bradmans out, in walks the ghost of Elvira, gray from head to foot. Only Charles can see and hear her, and he and Ruth immediately quarrel about her presence. The cross- conversation between Charles and Ruth and Charles and Elvira is exasperating to Ruth, who, believing Charles drunk, goes off to bed in a huff. The next morning at breakfast, Ruth is very cool to Charles and insists that he had too much to drink the night before. When he insists that he had a hallucination, Ruth attributes it to indigestion. The bickering continues until Elvira enters, carrying roses. When Charles sees her, a comical miscom- munication begins, with Ruth unable to see or hear Elvira and feeling certain that Charles’s unpleasant remarks are meant for her. Ruth becomes convinced her husband is mad and tries to soothe him and go for a doctor. Charles, frantic to be believed, enlists Elvira’s help, and she moves a bowl of flowers around the room to prove her existence. Ruth becomes hysterical, not sure whether she is being delud- ed, is going insane, or is actually in the presence of a ghost. Later, alone, Ruth visits with Madame Arcati again--and is shocked and angered that Madame Arcati is unable to dematerialize Elvira and also believes that Charles subconsciously wanted Elvira back. When Ruth is rude to her, the spiritualist leaves in a huff. Elvira and Charles enter, and Elvira seems delighted that she will be a permanent guest. Ruth swears to rid herself of the ghost. Suspense builds when, several days later, both Edith (the maid) and Charles have accidents--Edith because of axle grease rubbed on the stairs and Charles on a ladder that proves to have been sawed nearly in two. Ruth insists, and Charles is convinced, that Elvira is trying to kill Charles in order to have him for herself again. Ruth leaves in the car, which Elvira had booby-trapped for Charles, and is killed in the ensuing “accident.” The act ends with Elvira frantically retreating from Ruth’s ghost, invis- ible to Charles. Charles calls Madame Arcati, who goes into a trance to try and dematerialize Elvira. It works in reverse, though, and in walks the ghost of Ruth, now plainly visible, along with Elvira, to Charles. After trying all sorts of supernatural tricks, Madame Arcati is about to despair; the ghosts simply will not go away. Then she realizes that it was not Charles who called up Elvira and Ruth--it was Edith. The maid, when discovered, is contrite, and Madame Arcati hypnotizes her; and the ghosts vanish at last. Suggesting that Charles travel for awhile, Madame Arcati exits. Charles, now alone, but not really alone, teases Ruth and Elvira about how much he will enjoy his freedom. Vases crash into the fireplace, pictures come crashing down, the mantel topples--and the cur- tain falls. 4 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Characters: Blithe Spirit CHARLES CONDOMINE: In his forties, Charles is an intelligent and urbane English nov- elist. Charles is the husband of Ruth Condomine and deceased first wife, Elvira. RUTH CONDOMINE: A smart looking woman in her mid-thirties, Ruth is the wife of Charles. She is a bit jealous of Charles’s relationship with his first wife. DR. BRADMAN: A pleasant-looking middle-aged man, Dr. Bradman is a friend of the Condomines. MRS. BRADMAN: The wife of Dr. Bradman, Mrs. Bradman is middle-aged and a bit faded. MADAME ARCATI: A middle-aged spiritualist, Madame Arcati is a striking woman. She is not too extravagant but has a definite bias towad the barbaric. ELVIRA: Charles Condomine’s deceased first wife, Elvira returns as a ghost with a goal. In the process, she makes Charles’s and Ruth’s lives very complicated. EDITH: The Condomine’s maid, Edith is always in a hurry. About the Playwright: Utah Shakespeare Festival 5 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Noel Coward Noel Pierce Coward was born on 16 December 1899. His family on his father’s side was very talented musically, and they helped nurture the natural virtuosity of the child, instilling in him a lifelong love of music. Also, his mother took him to the theatre every year on his birth- day, and, as he grew older, he found these junkets more and more fascinating and upon return- ing home would rush to the piano and play by ear the songs from the production he had just seen. He made his first public appearance, singing and accompanying himself on the piano, at a concert held at Miss Willington’s School. Though obviously a very talented child, Coward’s precocity did not carry over to his formal education. At best, his schooling was sporadic. He was indulged by his mother, who became the stereotypical stage mother during his early years, and it was at his mother’s insistence that he began attending Miss Janet Thomas’s Dancing Academy in addition to his regular school in London. Soon, Miss Thomas’s school usurped the position of importance held by traditional academic fare, and Coward became a child per- former. Coward’s first professional engagement, and that which launched his long career, was on 27 January 1911 in a children’s play, The Goldfish. After this appearance, he was sought after for children’s roles by other professional theatres. He was featured in several productions with Sir Charles Hawtrey, a light comedian, whom Coward idolized and to whom he virtually appren- ticed himself until he was twenty. It was from Hawtrey that Coward learned comic acting tech- niques and playwriting. At the tender age of twelve, Coward met one of the actresses who would help contribute to his overwhelming success, Gertrude Lawrence; she was then fifteen and a child performer as well. The acting team of Coward and Lawrence would become synonymous with polished, sophisticated comedy during the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. Coward began his writing career when he was sixteen by writing songs and selling them for distribution. He turned his hand to playwriting when he was seventeen and found that he was very good at writing dialogue. By 1919, his play I’ll Leave It to You was produced in the West End with Coward in the leading role. One of the idiosyncrasies of Coward’s writing is that often he wrote “whacking good parts” for himself or for people he knew. Some of his best plays are essentially vehicles for his own talents or those of Gertrude Lawrence and later of the Lunts. I’ll Leave It to You met with moderate success, and Coward received great praise from critics for his play-writing abilities. Coward went to New York for the first time in 1921 and arrived virtually penniless; however, although he may have begun the 1920s in penury, his position as the most popular playwright in the English theatre became secure during this decade. In 1924, The Vortex, Coward’s most important serious play, was produced in London. The years from 1928 to 1934 were regarded by many as Coward’s “golden years.” His string of successes include This Year of Grace, Bitter Sweet, Private Lives, Cavalcade, Words and Music, Design for Living, and Conversation Piece.