The US Steel-sponsored revival of BLITHE SPIRIT was first broadcast in 1947, and starred Clifton Webb and Mildred Natwick from the original Broadway production. To those familiar with the original play, there were some significant textual Alterations in this revival. It began with Webb addressing the audience direct, ostensibly from the ship of a steamer taking him to New York. He had escaped from both his wives, and was now going to tell the entire story. Unlike the David Lean film from 1945, Charles survived at the end to life a wife-free existence, suggesting that the cause of women’s rights was far from the author’s mind. Or maybe the male survivor was something that US producers considered more acceptable to audiences.
In fact, Charles had a relatively easy time in this revival. He escaped being killed by Elvira, and avoided the indignity of a sprained arm due to falling down the stairs. The maid Daisy - renamed for this production got concussion from falling down the stairs, but Charles listened to Ruth for once, and escaped punishment. He lived to continue telling the tale.
The production had other changes. Madame Arcati was not only a medium but worked with the Girl Guides, so as to make it seem as if she wasn’t wasting her time. She was also a basketball referee, a somewhat curious profession, given that basketball was probably seldom played by British Girl Guldes In the 1940s. Netball, yes: but not basketball. This attempt to Americanise the text a little, so as to make Madame Arcati more normal didn’t appear to jar, even though it might have been slightly inaccurate.
The production made slight textual economies, which conjured up fascinating images. Charles and Elvira’s lovers were reasssigned; now they were Dr. and Mrs. Bradman. This gave the seance a sexual angle completely foreign to Coward’s text; in alternative circumstances the participants might have paired off and had some extra entertainment, so to speak.
But that might have been too much, especially following the scene between Charles and Elvira, which was full of heavy breathing and suppressed eroticism as Elvira seduced her late husband. It was evident that he preferred Elvira to Ruth as he spent the night on the sofa having his head caressed by Elvira. In fact, Charles didn’t emerge from this production with too much credit, as he ended up intellectually unscathed, sailing to New York to begin a new life which would probably be as complicated as his old life.
This evident conservatism might have been imposed by the sponsors, fearful of a too radical content. Or perhaps the Theatre Guild built the production around Clifton Webb’s rather sexless screen and stage persona. He appreciated flirting but nothing more; especially from women. He was someone pursuing his own life on his own terms, and his wives would have to agree to it, or else leave. This created another contradiction; at one point Ruth observed how Charles was easily manipulated by women,and that his assertions of authority were purely bogus. But that was not the impression cast by Webb’s characterisation, which put him in position of authority. Perhaps this strategy was deliberate, to show that Charles, Ruth and Elvira had different views of Charles’s character, that significantly influenced their behaviour. the arguments between them were aggressively handled in this production, with few soft voices and lots of aggression.
Recorded in front of a live audience, this production generated a fair proportion of laughs, thereby vindicating its popularity. Perhaps it was of its time, in its reassertion of male authority at thread, but it revealed how the text could be slightly rearranged at no cost to its overall effect. In a sense it is actor- and director-proof.
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