THEATER REVIEW | 'BLITHE SPIRIT'
The Medium as the Messenger
By BEN BRANTLEY

There is no choreographer listed among the credits for the genial but bumpy new revival of Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit,” which opened Sunday night at the Shubert Theater. Yet for pure originality and expressiveness, it’s hard to imagine any Broadway chorus line topping the solo dances performed here by an 83-year-old woman with a superfluity of bad jewelry, the gait of a gazelle and a repertory of poses that bring to mind Egyptian hieroglyphs.

That’s Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcati, a very self-serious medium on the prowl for vibrations from the spirit world. And when Madame Arcati feels vibrations, she vibrates — sometimes like a tuning fork, sometimes like wind chimes in a monsoon. As for those little neo-Nijinsky dances, they are Madame Arcati’s method for making herself receptive for the arrival of errant ectoplasms. Were I a ghost, I would definitely make a point of revisiting the dreary world whenever this rare medium dances.

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Angela Lansbury to Return to Broadway in Blithe Spirit Revival

By Andrew Gans
October 13, 2008

Four-time Tony Award winner Angela Lansbury, most recently on Broadway opposite Marian Seldes in Terrence McNally's Deuce, will return to Broadway this season in the upcoming revival of Blithe Spirit.

Lansbury will play psychic Madame Arcati in the revival of the classic Noel Coward comedy, according to Variety. Lansbury will join the previously announced Christine Ebersole (Tony winner for Grey Gardens and 42nd Street) as the ghostly Elvira and film star Rupert Everett ("My Best Friend's Wedding," "Another Country" and "An Ideal Husband"), who will be making his Broadway debut. Michael Blakemore, who directed Lansbury in Deuce, will direct at a Shubert Theatre to be announced.

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