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Monday, May 6, 2002
Contact: Peter Bailley
news@knox.edu
309-341-7715
Knox College Theatre presents Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit" May 8-11 at 7:30pm in Harbach Theatre, Ford Center for the Fine Arts on the Knox campus, Galesburg, Illinois. Tickets are $9.00 for adults, and can be bought at the door. Students are admitted free with school ID.
The play is a classic British Comedy. It is set in a small English town, in the house of an upper class couple, Charles (Dave Urlakis), who is a fairly well-known novelist, and Ruth Condomine (Amanda Horton), Charles' second wife who concerns herself with maintaining the image attributed to one of her social class.
The play opens with the preparations for a dinner party. The most immediate complication in the Condomine's life is the training of their new, and not terribly capable maid (Evie Decherd). Charles has, in sport, invited to the dinner a local and rather eccentric psychic, Madame Arcati (Helen Drysdale). He has asked her to perform a séance and is hoping that she will unknowingly reveal some of the "tricks of the trade" so that he might use them in writing his newest book. Also attending the séance is the local doctor and his wife, social climbers, who add a comic note to the scene with their rather unrefined characteristics.
The evening progresses until an eerie occurrence during the séance puts an end to their fun, but the repurcussions of the evening are far from over. When the results of the séance are finally revealed, Charles' life, including his second marriage, take disastrous turns, producting of a very entertaining play.
The director of the production, Ivan H. Davidson, describes the play as a "satire of marriage and male/female relationships", and calls Noel Coward a "master of language and wit", in that, the language of the play is very quick-paced, adding humor to the complications and actions of the characters. Prof. Davidson was especially excited about this style because it has not often been done at Knox. The style of the set, designed as a traditional box set, has also not been seen at Knox for several years. The detail given to the these styles of language, physicality, and atmosphere work smoothly to bring the world of the play to life.
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