Passed over, not Dead (Hayswood Theatre)
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Blithe Spirit
By Noel Coward
Directed by Steven Rahe
Review by Kate Barry
Entire contents are copyright @2025 by Kate Barry. All rights reserved.
Certain ensemble driven plays have become mainstays in the local theater scene. It’s almost as if you expect someone to produce these types of plays every season. Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit has become a perennial favorite and with good reason. The play is a little funny and it’s a little bit of a ghost story. The play has enough to keep audiences interested with all of its twists. And Hayswood Theatre’s offering of Coward’s spooky play will keep you entertained.
Strong choices are made before the play even begins for an eerie yet nonthreatening mood. Wartime radio stories mingle with music about British pride. As the play premiered in the 1940’s, the setting suggests a World War two aesthetic with dark colors, landscape paintings on the wall, and a full bar and record player. Notably, the curtain speech was quite spritely as delivered by Sam Helms and Abby Helms. Used primarily to assist with scene changes and dressed in ominous white gowns, I would have loved to have seen the young actresses incorporated into the action as well.
With a script several decades old, there is some dialogue and ideas that seem problematic in these modern times. Carly Riggs’ maid character Edith is spoken to like a child by her employers constantly throughout the play both to her face and while she’s off stage as well. Riggs portrayal of a working class house maid has plenty of comical moments as she carries a huge tray off stage with disastrous results in one scene and gives an all too eager energy throughout as she runs in and out of scenes. But as the action rises and spirits appear Riggs manages to carry through with a major twist with well timed subtly.
The play uses mysticism and “ectoplasmic manifestations” as way to explore mental health in this era as well. A wealthy writer (Allen Platt) and his wife (Cara Cashon) invite a psychic into their home for research for a book he plans to write. Emily Trinkle’s turn as Madame Arcati keeps a steady pace as she shuffles around the stage in caftans garnished with jewels and baubles. Trinkle’s Arcati is a true believer in what she does while others may doubt her legitimacy. While her quirks and eccentricities are seen as bizarre, Trinkle brings some levity to the role as Madame Arcati searches from tea sandwiches and dives deep into her trances.
The focus of Blithe Spirit relies on the marriage between Charles and Ruth, played with plenty of posh snobbery by Platt and Cashon. As Charles, Platt soothes Ruth’s worry that their marriage may not be as strong as his first marriage. Yet, at the appearance of his dead wife Elvira, played with an excellent amount of personality and show stealing wit by Heidi Platt, Charles soon cannot handle the emotional strain of a haunting and jealous wife. Cara Cashon’s leans heavily into Ruth emotional swings and is fun to watch in the process. Initially a skeptic of calling upon spirits from another realm, Cashon’s Ruth grows more and more insecure by the arrival of her husband’s first wife to the point of rivalry and petty arguing.
The sparring between Cashon’s Ruth and Platt’s Elvira provide some of the strongest comedic moments of the show. Platt injects whimsy into Elvira’s haunting which only infuriates Ruth even more. While Ruth and Elvira are at odds, I won’t spoil the plot twists that lead Charles’ wives to be on the literal and metaphysical same side, let’s just say it pays off after secrets are revealed.
By the end of Blithe Spirit, it’s obvious why this play keeps popping up. Everyone likes a ghost story with a little bit of revenge and comedy. And this production has plenty of those likable qualities.
Blithe Spirit
Hayswood Theatre
June 19-29
115 S Capitol Ave
Corydon, IN
