Noel Coward's comedy of post-mortem marital reconciliation is probably the acme of safe traditional theatre. But by casting four women of colour and applying cross gender casting to two other roles, Paige Rattray remixes the work in interesting manners. Most of the cast would not get these roles in a conventional production, and while this is, in many ways, still a fairly conventional production, opening up the casting to the best person for the job helps this to break out of the mould a little more.
In some ways this is a production that breaks many of my preferences for comedy - I like actors not to be pushing too hard for their laughs, to play this reasonably straight, to let the script be the star and to let the audience work out where the jokes are. This production does feature some fairly large Capital A Acting going on, and surprisingly I really liked how it worked - pushing the extremes to drive the show into deeper hysteria helps to take away the risk of confusing any of Coward's somewhat 1940s approach to sexual politics for anything approaching realistic observation.
The most publiscised of the castings is drag performer Shane Jenek, aka Courtney Act as Elvira, the titular spirit - casting a drag queen emphasises exactly how much the character is performatively female, using seduction and charm to get her way as much as possible. Act really enjoys swishing her diaphonous robe around as much as possible and showing off her quite stunning legs to devestating effect. Matt Day as the writer protagonist is suitably stuffy and, more importantly, frantic as things get out of control - there's a reason Coward called the play an improbable farce and the play does require some elements of freneticism to it. Bessie Holland as Ruth is a revelation - dominant, imposing, absolutely not to be messed with, so it's delightful when circumstance keeps on messing with her. Brigid Zengeni's Madame Arcarti is a great mix of rural eccentric and inspired spiritual investigator, someone we really beleive has secret knowledge she's only sharing with us because she likes us. In the more minor roles, Megan Wilding is the one we take most to our heart as the put-upon Edith - her exit from the play is delightfully indignant at what she's been put through. Tracy Mann's Dr Bradman (in man-drag) is suitably bluff and hearty, and Nancy Denis's Mrs Bradman has a delighfully light manner that plays into the general goofy vibe of the show.
I liked David Fleischer's costume designs more than his set design - the set design feels a little too busy, with a few too many elements there for no particularly good reason except that the STC has budget to have them (the imposing fountain in the lobby, for example). Adam Mada's magic and illusions provide a few unexpected hilights, not just in the finale but even in the prologue.
In general this was a classy delight, playing with a familiar text in delightful ways. If it didn't really illuminate anyting particularly new, it gave a great cast of clowns a good chance to play around in a nonsensical environment, and that's certainly worth it.
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