Review Roundup: BLITHE SPIRIT, Starring Angela Lansbury, Opens in Toronto; Updated!

BLITHE SPIRIT, starring Angela Lansbury, opened last night in Toronto. The show will play Toronto for a strictly limited engagement through March 15 before touring to Washington D.C, having already toured to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Tickets are available now at Mirvish.com.

Researching for his new novel, Charles Condomine invites the implausible medium Madame Arcati to his house for a séance. While consumed in a trance, Madame Arcati unwittingly summons the ghost of Charles' dead wife Elvira. Appearing only to Charles, Elvira soon makes a play to reclaim her husband, much to the chagrin of Charles' new wife Ruth. Now if he wants his latest marriage to stand a ghost of a chance, he'd better conjure up a solution quickly.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

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J. Kelly Nestruck of The Globe and Mail: When stage legends tour in their later years, the experience can be like a seance - an attempt to commune with a spirit from the past. That's not the case here: Lansbury, at age 89, gives an energetic and accomplished comic turn as Madame Arcati that might very well have made her into a star if she weren't one already.

Richard Ouzounian of The Toronto Star: It's the strength of this production that everyone is both desperately earnest, yet hysterical funny at the same time, playing their moments for believability instead of laughs, which means, of course, they get twice as many guffaws in the end. Even the smaller roles, like Susan Louise O'Connor's diminutive, driven maid Edith, are played to perfection, and when characters like the jovial Dr. Bradman and his overly unctuous wife become real people in the hands of Simon Jones and Sandra Shipley, you know you're home free,

Alan Henry of BroadwayWorld: Leading up to last night's performance I was a little concerned that at 89 years old, her performance might not live up to the hype associated with the legend. I am pleased to report that the Lansbury performing on stage in Blithe Spirit is indeed the one I recognize from her most famous works. Her comedic timing is better than that which you'll find on SNL, at the Second City, or on any late night HBO special. She recites Coward's quick and witty dialogue with ease, and never looks as though she's working - but that she's having the time of her life. Lansbury also shows off some of her physical comedy skills, dancing and prancing about the stage in "trances" as the medium, Madame Arcati.

Jane Stevenson of Toronto Sun: But Lansbury is the show's undisputed draw as she struts her formidable stuff as Arcati, a dance-happy gal whose pre-trance routine borrows heavily from the Ministry of Silly Walks. You can't quite believe Lansbury's still vibrant physicality until you've seen it and she performs her quirky, jerky moves a couple of times in the production before flopping down on the Condomines' couch in front of a roaring fire. Lansbury gleefully chews the scenery - and it's quite beautiful at that, with the Condomine home all bleached wooden beams, white walls, pale green doors, and a large window with a constantly billowing white curtain courtesy of designer Simon Higlett - when she isn't chowing down on cucumber sandwiches as a chaser to all that booze.

Check back for more, coming soon!

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