It’s February, and New Yorkers are depressed. Uncommonly large mountains of snow have taken over the streets. If you turn on the news—actually, don’t turn on the news. And the Patriots are back in the Super Bowl.
Fortunately, there’s a cure for this seasonal affective disorder, and it involves Andrea Martin playing a Ouija board like a tambourine. As the loopy medium Madame Arcati in High Spirits at Encores!, she also dances a group of beret-wearing bohemians into a trance, sings a song about the virtues of cycling while pedaling like she’s on a Peloton, and manages to send a costar into a fit of giggles with the phrase “uno memento per favore!” She’s her own brand of theatrical Lexapro. Take one performance and call me in the morning.
Brava to director Jessica Stone (Kimberly Akimbo) for casting Martin—who plays Madame Dashkova on season 3 of HBO’s The Gilded Age—as a clairvoyant (clearly, the actress is in her fortune-teller era). And for nabbing real-life married couple Steven Pasquale and Phillipa Soo to play husband and wife Charles and Ruth Condomine in this musical adaptation of Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit. Fresh off the so-bad-it’s-good short-lived prime-time soap Doctor Odyssey, Soo, best known as Hamilton’s original Eliza Schulyer, proves an expert with Coward’s clipped manner and brisk banter. Pasquale frequently plays serious dramatic leading-man roles, and for good reason—broad shoulders, square jaw, booming voice. But he can do comedy; he was flawless as Sky Masterson, opposite Soo’s Sarah Brown, in 2022’s Guys and Dolls at the John F. Kennedy Center (RIP). It’s a treat to see them trading barbs again.
[Read Bob Verini’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The secret weapon of this High Spirits might be Tony winner Katrina Lenk (The Band’s Visit) as Elvira, the glamorous ghost of Charles’ first wife, who causes all manner of chaos from the moment she’s summoned by Madame Arcati at a harmless seance. (Think Endora from Bewitched, but without the blue eyeshadow or garish gowns.) Her playful, jazzy solo “You’d Better Love Me,” directed to her former husband, is gorgeous, and ever-so-ominous. And she makes a great case for the resuscitation of the ode to the afterlife “Home Sweet Heaven,” which she sings from a raised platform in front of music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell and the spectacular 29-piece orchestra: “Disraeli’s darling/ And Homer’s hearty/ And Joan of Arc’s the type who sparks the dullest party/ We split a bottle/ With Aristotle/ In my home sweet heaven.” Why have we let this swingy Cole Porter-esque song languish?
The score, by Hugh Martin (who wrote the chestnut “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”) and Timothy Gray, is a fizzy delight, from wistful ballads (Ruth’s pensive “Was She Prettier Than I?”) to bickering duets (Ruth and Charles’ “Where Is the Man I Married?”) to kooky character numbers (“The Bicycle Song,” performed by the pedal-pushing Madame Arcati and a handlebar-clutching ensemble).
With stereotypically drawn—read: shrewish—female characters, High Spirits is a throwback in every sense. And so is this Encores! version—i.e., actors carrying scripts, no elaborate sets. In other words, the ghosts don’t totally wreck the stage in the final scene. “Vases fall from the mantel” and “Drapes and curtains fall from the French doors” are heard only as stage directions read by a character named Coward (the charismatic Campbell Scott), as well as by a crash or boom approximating the destruction. The production does have a few tricks up its sleeve, though, courtesy of magic and illusion designer Skylar Fox.
Choreographer Ellenore Scott (Ragtime) adds a few more flourishes—“Go Into Your Trance” is a fantastic nod to Sweet Charity’s “Rich Man’s Frug”; her terrific ensemble of dancers will make you want to go home and do the Watusi. Afterward, mix yourself a very dry martini and raise a glass to Noël Coward, Encores!, and, as they say in another classic, “the two most glorious words in the English language”: musical comedy.
High Spirits opened Feb. 4, 2026, at New York City Center and runs through Feb. 15. Tickets and information: nycitycenter.org
