'BLITHE SPIRIT' PROVES AN ETHEREAL EXPERIENCE

BY DEBRA SCACCIAFERRO

DAILY RECORD

Noel Coward is celebrating his 100th birthday this year, so expect to see a lot of his plays during the coming theater season. His most popular comedy, 'Blithe Spirit," will debut at two area theaters this week. So far, I can heartily recommend the production by the professional Centenary Stage Company in the Little Theatre at Centenary College in Hackettstown.

Director Carl Wallnau once again demonstrates a fine, gleeful grasp of Coward's delicious and slightly malicious treatise on modern marriage. From the glossy country house set and opening music, including a cleverly adult version of the 'ABCs' written and performed by Noel Coward himself, to the final curtain, this is a crisp, clever, and devilishly funny 'Blithe Spirit.' It's as breezy as the ghost conjured up in its wake.

This play lives and breathes on the strength of its two leads, Charles Condomine, a slightly pompous novelist, and his brittle second wife, Ruth, whose glossy social veneer hides long simmering resentments.

Nick Stannard, a Centenary regular and stellar Broadway actor (last seen at Centenary as Lord Songsby in last season's "Inventing Montanta"), is in tip-top form as Charles, whose sly efforts to research a novel about a homicidal medium backfire, leaving him saddled with the ghost of his first wife, Elvira. His transformation from calm, confident urbane man of the world, to a dithering wreck of a henpecked husband doesn't miss a comic beat as he alternately cowers, vacillates and blunders royally in his frustrating attempts to appease his insanely jealous wives.

Josephine Hall, an English-expatriate from Philadelphia, makes an equally superb Ruth. Her cool, born-to-the-manor breeding hides a snake's nest of marital insecurities. Hall doesn't just seethe, she exudes icy venom at the first materialization of her spectral rival, and works her way up to a steely hysteria that is marvelously controlled. She and Stannard make it all look so natural, sharing a flair for split-second comic timing and superb physical comedy that allows them to dish up the dirt against each other in true Coward style.

They're a treat to watch.