Metro Pulse/Backstage/Blithe Spirit

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What:
Blithe Spirit, Produced by the Tennessee Valley Players

When:
Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. through Nov. 11

Where:
Black Box Theatre

Cost:
Call 584-8173 for ticket info.

Coward's Blithe Spirit is anything but

by Paige M. Travis

In their latest production, the Tennessee Valley Players have succumbed to the mistaken notion that actors are supposed to act BIG and LOUD and ENUNCIATE every syllable of the playwright's important words. This idea has caused their production of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit to erase subtlety and depth and undermine most of the humor within the play.

Without much analysis, the plot reveals a set of characters who are dense with personality issues and contradictions just dying to be exposed. First of all, Charles and Ruth Condomine (Mike Watkins and Gayle Greene) aren't a very happy couple. As they prepare to host a dinner party, they fight about Charles's late first wife, Elvira. Given some time with this couple and their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bradman (Paul Shields and Dorothy Donaldson), it becomes clear that these folks are wealthy and remarkably shallow. Their idea of a good time is to make fun of their impending visitor, Madame Arcati, a local psychic medium whom they have invited to dinner in order to observe for the sake of "research" for Charles' next short story. This kind of highbrow meanness is used to humorous effect in British shows like Keeping Up Appearances, but our American cast plays these despicable people so broadly that all allusion to their own shallowness and their eventual comeuppance is totally lost behind the sweeping gestures, physical comedy and outright yelling.

I have a low tolerance for yelling. Yelling creates stress and masks any nuance of emotion. Until Thompson-Boling Arena starts hosting theatrical events, there's absolutely no reason for actors to yell unless their characters are angry, mentally unstable or talking to someone who is far away or hearing impaired. There is a difference between speaking loudly enough for an audience to hear and shouting so that voices bounce distractingly off the theater walls. Surely Coward intended Blithe Spirit to be fun and not an aural assault on viewers. Hopefully his own spirit makes no plans to visit the Black Box Theatre in the coming weeks.

In moments not disturbed by yelling, I was charmed by the honest performance of Susan Bolt as Madame Arcati, the most real character of the play. Big and bold herself, Bolt evokes the eccentric neighbor as a clever but guileless woman who has contact with the Other Side. The Condomines and Bradmans find her wacky gypsy clothes and wild gestures hilarious (and not in a polite way), but she never seems to notice or mind.

As Elvira, Erica Rose Sutton provides a nice change of pace with her wicked glances and coy come-ons. She and Charles have a spark that doesn't exist between him and Ruth, which is why Ruth is jealous of her: even dead, she's sexier than Ruth. As Ruth, Gayle Greene seems too preoccupied with enunciating every syllable to respond in a natural way to her fellow actors.

Christine Tankersley's Edith (the housekeeper) is a pleasant contrast to every other hyperemotional character on stage. She's stoic—time spent in the Navy, apparently—and unfazed by the goings on in the house until she sees a ghost herself. Of course, Edith's offstage most of the time, but her low-key presence helps tone everything else down a notch. The other actors would've benefited from a similar range of emotion.

The costume designer's evocation of afterlife fashions is a brilliant touch. When I'm dead, I too want to wear silky, silvery gray gowns and be covered in glitter (much more attractive than the standard gooey ectoplasm). The monochrome outfits visually and stylistically separate the living from the dead.

Maybe this production is a comment on the state of American comedy. Perhaps director Bill Landry (of The Heartland Series), like Hollywood filmmakers, believes heavy-handed comedic gestures are more palatable to theater audiences than the wit and nuance of traditional British comedies. But several American TV sitcoms rely on the British formula and are highly rated and popular. Take Frasier for instance. The plots often set up Frasier and Niles to reveal them as the over-educated, pompous imbeciles that they are, but aren't they always flawed, human and sympathetic in the end? These are the kinds of characters Noel Coward wrote and intended to be presented on stage. Yet they are not what the Tennessee Valley Players created this time around. Instead, we get loud stereotypes who are in a constant state of anger, sadness, fear or some other extreme emotion. Blithe Spirit is a classic play that contains quieter moments. The actors, who are all capable enough, could have been guided to allow the funny and painful truths about human nature shine through. It just didn't happen this time.