The ageless, timeless and quite wonderful British treasure known as Angela Lansbury will launch the North American tour of her acclaimed production of “Blithe Spirit” from December 9th at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown LA.
Lansbury, who first moved to Hollywood in 1940 and has been acting ever since, has played the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati in this Noel Coward classic to sold-out engagements both on Broadway and in London’s West End.
The play concerns the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites Madame Arcati to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his annoying and temperamental first wife, Elvira, after the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles’s marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost.
The play was first seen in the West End in 1941, creating a new long-run record for non-musical British plays of 1,997 performances. It also did well on Broadway later that year, running for 657 performances. Coward adapted the play for film in 1945, starring Rex Harrison, and directed a musical adaptation, High Spirits, on Broadway in 1964. It was also adapted for television in the 1950s and 1960s and for radio. The play enjoyed several West End and Broadway revivals in the 1970s and 1980s and was revived again in London in 2004, 2011 and 2014. It returned to Broadway in February 2009, with Lansbury starring. The play is directed by Michael Blakemore and co-stars Charles Edwards, Susan Louise O’connor, Charlotte Parry, Jemima Rooper and Sandra Shipley.
Tickets go on sale September 24 at www.centertheatregroup.org
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