Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” gets laughs to this day as audience members witness the trials of a man forced into polygamy by the ghost of his first wife.
“It’s a farce,” Pam Powers said when the cast of the Greenwood Little Theatre’s production of Coward’s play held its first read through in late September.
Powers is directing the play, which runs Oct. 27-30 in Davis Auditorium. General admission ticket prices are $20 per adult, $10 per student. GLT members are admitted free. You can purchase tickets by contacting 662-219-3822 or going to ticketing@greenwoodlittletheatre or online at greenwoodlittletheatre.com. Tickets may also be purchased at the door.
Katie Mills, who plays Ruth Condomine, the second wife, said the farcical nature of the show is what makes it worthwhile. “The humor of it all, the absurdity of it all is so outrageous and so out there,” she said, the audience can’t help but have a good time.
“It’s truly a comedy of manners, with an untenable situation,” Ali Dinkins, who plays the ghostly Elvira Condomine, added.
Rehearsals are now in full swing, and cast members find relief in the humor of the production.
“To be completely honest, I wouldn’t have done this show if it weren’t a comedy,” Dinkins said.
Even with the themes of death, marriage and self-realization that pervade the play, the situation the characters find themselves in is more frustrating than grieving, Michele Hale said.
Hale, an Oklahoma native who moved to Greenwood in August, plays the medium, Madame Arcati. She is the one responsible for conjuring the ghost of Charles Condomine’s wife.
“I just think it’s kind of a light-hearted impossible situation with the characters. The audience should be engaged and enjoy the show,” she said.
Most of the cast agreed that the play is a balm to the sorrows its content addresses.
“It just makes me laugh,” Elicia Elmore, who plays the role of Edith, said. “A good laugh,” Kimberly Gnemi, who plays Mrs. Bradman, added.
“It’s a mode for escapism,” Paul Brown, who plays Condomine, explained.
“Blithe Spirit” premiered on London’s West End in 1941 in the midst of World War II and went on to set a record for the longest running non-musical on the West End.
“People were down in the dumps with what was happening,” said Bob Draper, who plays Dr. Bradman and who facilitated GLT’s production after viewing the 2014 Angela Lansbury production on YouTube.
“What was happening” was the London Blitz, a period from 1940 to May 1941 when the Germans periodically bombed the city as an act of war.
The play also deals with death and loss in a way that allows viewers to process grief without settling into it, Dinkins added.
This was the theme Powers initally addressed when the cast was reading through the play.
“All of us, I’m sure, have lost somebody ... and even though they don’t appear in person as a ghost, they can still be nearby with memories ... so it’s like ... they’re always a part of you,” she reflected.
Condomine is an English novelist, skeptical of seances and the afterlife. He hires a medium to get a first-hand experience before he writes a novel that involves mediums and seances, expecting the experience to go smoothly and be entertaining.
Instead, Arcati conjures the ghost of Condomine’s first wife, Elvira, which complicates his relationship with his second wife, Ruth.
Actors in this production draw parallels between the somber circumstances of the premiere on the West End and the sobriety of life now, in the post-pandemic grief-ridden world.
For several, this is the first theater production they have been in since COVID-19 hit in 2020.
Brown said the play allows escapism for him specifically after the pandemic shut everything down. Brown is a home-health nurse, and the last play he was in was the Little Theatre’s production of “Annie.”
“We find ourselves in kind of the same spot,” Hale said.
Dinkins agreed.
“I ... think life is giving us enough challenges right now, since the pandemic started. ... Sometimes we need something to be lighter and to think less deeply,” she said.
She drew parallels between the losses that the community has seen because of COVID-19 and the losses that London was dealing with from the bombing.
“Art tends to meet the needs of society,” she said, “If you look at World War II, everything was in relief mode. It was fun and joyful, and right now art is trying to meet the need for relief. To me, ‘Blithe Spirit’ is post-WWII, post-pandemic. It meets that need.”
Dinkins drives from Jackson to Greenwood to fill her role in this cast because she is inspired by the dedication of the Little Theatre, even through trials such as COVID-19.
She has been attending Little Theatre productions since she was a child, and said the reputation the theater has is due to the legacy those involved pass down and the volunteer’s heart that marks Greenwood’s citizens.
“There has always been a person (GLT) can count on and ... those people change through generations, but there have always been people who step up to make this happen ... Greenwood is a very unique town and always has the next generation of leaders to step up into those roles,” she said.
The Little Theatre partnered with the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District to use the auditorium, and this will also be the first production that fully incorporates the theater’s partnership with Mississippi Valley State University. Students from Valley will play from the orchestra pit, Powers said, and “it should all really come together.”
Students from MVSU also helped in the creation of the set, which was assembled by Allen Wood III, Powers’ husband, Mo, and two Valley students, Iankel Santos and Cielo Mazanini.
Contact Katherine Parker at 662-581-7239 or kparker@gwcommonwealth.com
