The obscurity of High Spirits in musical theater memory, let alone the musical theater canon, becomes even more mysterious with this concert performance by Encores, the piece’s first pro appearance in New York since its 1964 premiere. The adaptation of Noël Coward’s 1941 Blithe Spirit, that evergreen ghostly-romantic comedy, proves itself to be far more than serviceable, a delightful package of vintage melody and witty lyrics, particularly as delivered by a stellar cast.
It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and quarry, the quarry being novelist Charles Condomine (Steven Pasquale), who finds himself juggling two wives: practical, grounded Ruth (Phillipa Soo) very much on the premises, and flighty, flirty first spouse Elvira (Katrina Lenk), summoned back from the beyond by a séance gone awry. The hijinks that ensue, complicated by the inept machinations of madcap medium Madame Arcati (Andrea Martin), are familiar to anyone who has enjoyed the original play since it owned the West End during World War II, through the 1945 film and subsequent revivals worldwide in multiple media, including the most recent Broadway one in 2009.
High Spirits never purported to reconstitute what was already working, one possible reason why it hasn’t attracted concept-minded directors. Essentially, the musical’s creators Hugh Martin (Meet Me In St. Louis) and Timothy Gray, with Coward as original helmer, added songs to a tightened-up text (further tightened for Encores by the able Billy Rosenfield) plus an ensemble and production numbers to build up Arcati as a star part.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
But what songs! They float into the air and land as instant earworms, but the pleasant kind, the kind that make you sit back and recall the days when popular song prioritized sweet melody. The lush 30-piece orchestra, notwithstanding some evident opening-night jitters, pulls off a wide range of styles from Nelson Riddle-brash to St. Louis Blues under Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s firm music direction. Most impressively, here are genuine character numbers that push the story forward, not mere interpolations that tell us what we already know. Irrelevancy, the curse of most scores tacked onto straight-play originals, never becomes an issue.
And the performances are everything you could wish for: Soo heartbreakingly revealing the doubts of a second wife in “Was She Prettier Than I?”; Lenk’s spirit blithely reeling in her ex with “You’d Better Love Me,” and then seducing him to near-suicide “Faster Than Sound.” The musical potential in the spooky triangle is exploited by a couple of genial quodlibets, while our hapless groom Pasquale gets to rekindle old flames with each relationship’s “our song”: the yearning “Forever and a Day” with Elvira, the simple, heartfelt “If I Gave You” with Ruth. (That Pasquale and Soo are real-life marrieds adds extra vibrancy to that last.)
Arcati, of course, must be the principal source of comedy, and Andrea Martin is an inspired choice who grabs us even when slowed down by the inevitable Encores looseleaf binders. (Her paean to her Ouija, “Talking to You,” turns into a showstopper when you notice the board serving as her cheat sheet.) There are hints of Martin’s unforgettably officious SCTV creation Perini Scleroso in her efforts to marshal the spirits, as well as an overarching sense that the lady – character and performer alike – is just in it for a rollicking fun time. Jolly good show, ma’am.
Jolly good show throughout, in fact. All the principals make strong impressions, including Rachel Dratch and Jennifer Sánchez in the often thankless parts of, respectively, the upstairs maid and a doctor’s spouse; the redoubtable Campbell Scott does double duty as the doctor and as Coward himself, our narrator. Director Jessica Stone (Water for Elephants) gets the play’s arch tone mostly right throughout and moves things along efficiently, and I can’t say enough about Ellenore Scott’s choreography and super ensemble. Arcati’s acolytes are described as “beatniks,” but it’s a period piece and we needn’t worry, they’re not condescended to nor used for cheap gags. The young performers are fully committed to the Madame’s compact with the Great Beyond, expressing themselves in movement now-jerky now-smooth, as if Bob Fosse were experimenting with cubism. Their confidence belies the traditionally limited rehearsal time of concert stagings.
So, the $64,000 question: Is the show ready for a full comeback? I wouldn’t bet against it. Skylar Fox’s neat magic and illusions give a taste of the spectacle potential of the story. If City Center’s starpower could be supplemented with the kind of technology at work at Harry Potter and Stranger Things, High Spirits could tap into the best of both worlds, this one and the next. In any case, a fuller production would surely provide, as this version does, a refreshingly civilized and invigorating entertainment. And as they used to say, boy, do we need it now.
High Spirits opened February 4, 2026, at City Center and runs through February 16. Tickets and information: nycitycenter.org
