{"id":34286,"date":"2024-02-29T12:09:29","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T17:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=34286"},"modified":"2024-02-29T12:09:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T17:09:31","slug":"blithe-spirit-is-less-of-a-ghost-story-and-more-about-relationships-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/blithe-spirit-is-less-of-a-ghost-story-and-more-about-relationships-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Blithe Spirit is less of a ghost story and more about relationships: Director"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A ghost or two are set to take over the Theatre Aurora stage this week as they raise the curtain on Noel Coward\u2019s classic play, Blithe Spirit \u2013 but, if you\u2019re looking for a traditional ghost story, you might instead find an enduring comedy that\u2019s more about relationships than anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blithe Spirit opens with Charles and Ruth Condomine planning a smart dinner party, extending an invitation to local eccentric and self-styled medium Madame Arcati to host a s\u00e9ance as an added attraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, Arcati\u2019s powers are more than she anticipated and, before long, she\u2019s conjured up the ghost of Charles\u2019s first wife, Elvira, and, needless to say, hijinks ensue. Also, given the fact Elvira is conjured back to life just as earthy and attractive as she was at the time of her death, her presence naturally complicates Charles\u2019 marriage to Ruth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElvira is really there after Charles and really lays it on thick,\u201d says director Judi Cragg with a laugh. \u201cYou can feel sorry for Charles that this is happening, to a certain extent, but when he sits there and says to his live wife that he\u2019s enjoying having his dead wife around and how physically attractive she is, it\u2019s not the most clever thing to say to your wife!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blithe Spirit is the penultimate show of Theatre Aurora\u2019s 2023-2024 season and director Judi Cragg is eager to take on a classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are a lot of younger people who have never even heard of Noel Coward, which is kind of sad, but I was drawn to Blithe Spirit for a couple of reasons; One, Coward is just so witty and clever, and it\u2019s the pacing that is so different that sets it apart. It\u2019s very funny, but different from some of the more modern comedy we get nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coward, she says, wrote the play in under a week, with little more than a few line changes before it was mounted on the stage in 1941. Written during the Second World War, Coward rightly thought the world could use a laugh. Ordinarily, of course, a play that features the theme of death so prominently isn\u2019t necessarily the sturdiest foundation for a laugh-fest, but it hit the right spot \u2013 originally running for nearly 2,000 performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe death part in it is not sad, it\u2019s just something kind of matter-of-fact,\u201d says Cragg of Elvira\u2019s demise, which happened well before the action of the play. \u201cThe tricky bit was you\u2019re writing about death and that wasn\u2019t funny at the time \u2013 people were losing family members [in the war] and so on \u2013 but it\u2019s incredible Coward managed to shape this piece in such a way that people were able to laugh and it was huge. It\u2019s just funny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And audiences spanning generations agree. Always a popular favourite for theatre companies large and small, Blithe Spirit has also garnered fans through the 1945 film adaptation starring Rex Harrison and Margaret Rutherford, and even took Toronto by storm in 2015 when Angela Lansbury brought Madame Arcati to life at The Princess of Wales Theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those plays that provides an escape,\u201d says Cragg. \u201cPost-COVID, it\u2019s still in our brains and I think we still need to laugh, we still need an escape, and Blithe Spirit provides that. It\u2019s funny, it\u2019s fast-paced, it\u2019s witty and nothing that is going to make you upset or cry. It\u2019s not one of those things that\u2019s going to make you think a lot or feel a lot, and I love those kinds of plays, too. It\u2019s just fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[When it was first produced] The Daily Herald [called it], \u2018A sophisticated escape from the realities of today,\u2019 and that can relate to almost any time in our history. I hope when people come, they will laugh, they will enjoy it, and they will walk out the door saying, \u2018That was great.\u2019 That\u2019s what you\u2019re going to get.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theatre Aurora\u2019s production of Blithe Spirit, billed as a \u201chauntingly hilarious tale of love, laughter and late wives\u201d opens Thursday, February 29, running on select dates and times through March 9. For tickets and showtimes, visit theatreaurora.com or call the box office at 905-727-3669.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A ghost or two are set to take over the Theatre Aurora stage this week as they raise the curtain on Noel Coward\u2019s classic play, Blithe Spirit \u2013 but, if you\u2019re looking for a traditional ghost story, you might instead find an enduring comedy that\u2019s more about relationships than anything else. Blithe Spirit opens with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2024-02-29-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8V0","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 09:12:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}