10A • October 6, 2017 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
Noel Coward’s classic comedy makes witty use of words
‘Blithe Spirit’ comes to The Coaster Theatre
By Patrick Webb
For EO Media Group
Actors don’t usually accept
roles and then leave on vacation
just after rehearsals begin.
But for Karen Martin, who
plays the medium, Madame
Arcati, in the Coaster Theatre
production of “Blithe Spirit,” it
helped in her preparation.
Martin was cast by direc-
tor Edward James, then flew to
England on a long-planned trip
— taking her script to learn her
dialogue.
“I was on a train, and I heard
this women talking,” Martin
said. “It turned out she was a
professional actress, so I asked
her how to say some of my
lines. We ended up reading them
together. It was lovely to spend a
little time with her.”
Martin’s refined British ac-
cent can be heard in the com-
edy, which runs through Satur-
day, Oct. 28, with Friday and
Saturday evening shows and a
couple of Sunday matinees.
“Blithe Spirit” tells the story
of a socialite writer (played by
Coaster regular David Swee-
ney) who invites a spiritualist
to stage a séance to provide ma-
terial for a book on the occult.
However, she conjures up
the spirit of his dead wife, El-
vira (Ellen Jensen), who is de-
termined to spoil his happiness
with his second wife, Ruth
(Katrina Godderz). Comedy
ensures, in part because Ruth
cannot see Elvira. To tell more
would spoil any surprises for
first-time attendees, but it must
be said the comedy does have a
dark side.
The director, James, is an
Astoria native who returned to
his hometown about 10 years
ago. He had a professional act-
ing/directing career that took
him all over the country, includ-
ing New York. He moved to
Portland some 20 years ago and
credits the box-office success of
a production of “Blithe Spirit,”
in which he starred, with keep-
Suave writer Charles (David Sweeney) chats amiably with
his second wife, Ruth (Katrina Godderz, at right) while the
interfering ghost of his first wife, Elvira (Ellen Jensen, cen-
ter), does everything possible to spoil their relationship.
If you go
“Blithe Spirit,” a comedy by Noel Coward
WHERE: The Coaster Theatre, Cannon Beach
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Oct.
28; 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15
PHOTOS BY PATRICK WEBB
The exertion of the séance appears too much for collapsed medium Madame Arcati, played
by Karen Martin, as Charles (David Sweeney) and his second wife, Ruth (Katrina Godderz,
at left) look on. The spirit of Charles’ first wife, Elvira (Ellen Jensen), center, is also present,
and the comedy in the show occurs, in part, because Ruth cannot see her.
ing his Jupiter Theater troupe
afloat in its first season.
The play is often staged
in community theater, in part
because it has three strong fe-
male roles. To prepare a fresh
interpretation, James watched
video of Italian and Mexican
versions, which accentuate the
argumentative exchanges be-
tween the characters and high-
light the ghost’s appearances.
An Anglophile, he hopes
author Noel Coward’s witty use
of words will excite his cast and
entertain the audience.
“Working in the language of
Coward is a delight,” he said.
“If you can get people to come,
then theater can do what the-
ater does — and that’s to open
minds and make us more capa-
ble of communication.”
The play fosters the art of
conversation. “There are events
in the play, but what holds our
interest is the joy of language,
and the battle of language.”
Coward created memorable
scripts in which the outcome
is rarely what the audience
expects, spawning decades of
edgy British comedy that mor-
phed from the witty radio and
TV classics of the 1960s into
the Monty Python phenom-
enon that followed. During
World War II, he went on va-
cation after his London home
was bombed and wrote “Blithe
Spirit” during an intense six-
day typing session.
Creating a play about ghosts
for a wartime audience was
a risk, but humor offered an
escape from troubled times.
(Similarly, his “Private Lives”
made its debut in 1930 amid the
global financial crisis.) “Blithe
Spirit” ran for almost 2,000 per-
formances, beating the record.
Coward reportedly said, “dis-
daining archness and false mod-
esty, I will admit that I knew it
was witty, I knew it was well
constructed, and I also knew
that it would be a success.”
It opened in London in 1941
with Margaret Rutherford as
the medium, a role she would
reprise in Coward’s 1945
movie adaptation starring Rex
Harrison. Coward himself and
John Gielgud acted in other
early stage productions; Clif-
ton Webb featured in the first
Broadway version. Much later,
revivals featured Angela Lans-
bury as Madame Arcati and
earned her a fifth Tony Award.
“She’s the most interesting
character,” James said, recall-
Alaina Giguiere
Marty Giguiere
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TICKETS: $20 or $25, call 503-436-1242 or log on to
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BOX OFFICE: Open 1 to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday;
performance days, 1 p.m. to curtain time.
ing one line in which the robust
woman shrugs off the physical
exertion of cycling seven miles.
“It’s the one that everyone
wants to play. She’s a fake, but
what happens in the show is her
biggest success.”
Martin, North Coast theater
regular, is savoring the opportu-
nity. “Edward says she is really
a phony, but I also know that
she doesn’t realize that she is
a phony. She is serious about
what she has done — so that
makes it very comic.”
Sweeney, a North Coast
pastor, takes the male lead of
Charles, who is not all he seems.
“We find out that in both
of his marriages they were not
being truthful with each other,”
James said. “We find out he is
extremely shallow, but had two
beautiful women in his life. We
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have all met that guy. He’s ‘on’
all of the time, and when you
are ‘on’ all of the time you are
not reflective.”
Sweeney is relishing the
role. “He is sort of a ‘type’ from
the 30s or 40s. He never real-
ly settled down,” he said. “He
got married, but that didn’t stop
other things from happening.
So it’s karma — comic karma.”
Others appearing are Thom-
as and Cathey Ryan as a mar-
ried couple and Evelyn Isakson
as the maid.
Several cast members are
making their Coaster debuts,
and Martin delights in that.
“Doing community theater, you
make friends with people that
you work with over and over,
and then you welcome new
people in, and they all get to be
like family,” she said.
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