Blithe Spirit, entrusted to David Lean, with whom Coward had worked happily on In Which We Serve (1942) and This Happy Breed (1944), was supposed to be different.
The play premiered on Broadway in November 1941 at the Morosco Theatre, running for 657 performances.
Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit playfully mocks the traditions of love and marriage. The smugly self-adoring Charles has earned not escape but an eternity of spirit-life in which to work out the limits of his own egotism. <>>> Early Modern History: c.1450/1500 to c.1700, Modern History to 20th Century: c.1700 to c.1900, South West Wales Through the Lens of Harry Squibbs Series, The Victorian Traveller's Guide to … Series, An Illustrated Introduction to ... Series, The First World War at Sea in Photographs Series, The First World War in Photographs Series, The Second World War at Sea in Photographs Series, The Second World War in Photographs Series, The Second World War in the Air in Photographs Series, Industrial Locomotives & Railways of ... Series, The Architecture and Infrastructure of Britain's Railways, The London, Midland and Scottish Railway Series. The very title of Present Laughter—the exercise in farcical self-portraiture that preceded Blithe Spirit—suggests that necessary ingredient of physical presence. Change ).
Lean’s film becomes almost by default a supernatural fantasy in a way the play is not.
Blithe Spirit, entrusted to David Lean, with whom Coward had worked happily on In Which We Serve (1942) and This Happy Breed (1944), was supposed to be different. Performance & security by Cloudflare, Please complete the security check to access. But when he saw the rough cut, the playwright famously remarked: “My dear, you’ve just fucked up the best thing I ever wrote.” Charles is bright, sophisticated, articulate, and debonair but somewhat at the mercy of his wives, past and present. © 2015 Amberley Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Blithe Spirit was first produced at the Manchester Opera House in June 1941, before making its West End premiere at the Piccadilly Theatre the following month. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Rutherford would go on to many other wonderful performances, but here she can be savored at something like full strength. to read our guide for Blithe Spirit and unlock other amazing theatre resources!
Coward’s great comedies do not hinge on plot, and their much-vaunted wit is mostly a matter of tone and rhythm. His passionless and just barely affectionate marriage to Ruth (Constance Cummings) is clearly sketched in their early exchanges, and when Charles’s first wife, Elvira (Kay Hammond), comes back from the beyond, it is only to reveal the severe limitations of that prior marriage.
Blithe Spirit opens in the fashionable living room of the Condomines’ house in Kent.
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• Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
When in his diary Coward described the work in progress as “superficial,” he may have been describing a crucial reason for its enormous success. It also thumbs its nose at the Grim Reaper. %���� Onstage, Elvira is very much there, even when Ruth cannot see her; in Lean’s editing, Elvira goes in and out of visibility, depending on point of view, automatically creating a multilayered sense of space. wrote Blithe Spirit, barely changing a word after that.