A spirited return to the stage
Hubtown Theatre’s Youth Players staging Noël Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit
“When I heard there would be auditions, I watched the movie so I would be more familiar with it, just so I would do better. I really liked it too. It’s fun, extreme, and exaggerated, so I thought it would be fun to act in.”
Maggie Warner
Mrs. Bradman in Hubtown Theatre
Youth Players’ production of Blithe Spirit
TRURO - ‘The show must go’ … and it will this month for a Hubtown Theatre Youth Players’ production.
From March 22 to 26, the players will be presenting Noël Coward’s classic comedy Blithe Spirit. Staged at the Marigold Cultural Centre, the show will run nightly with curtains-up at 7 p.m., with the exception of the final performance, which will be a matinee starting at 2 p.m.
“This is a comedy and it’s going to be really funny for the audience,” said Ethen Neil, a Grade 11 CEC student from Truro. “It’s a cool play to try and wrap your head around.”
The ‘head wrapping’ Ethen is referring to comes from the supernatural aspects of the play as his character, Charles Condomine, following a séance he arranged, gets more than he bargained for from his dead wife.
“It’s kind of a challenge because you’re supposed to be talking to a person, but you’re not seeing them,” Ethen said of his role.
“I was just looking for a production because I haven’t done one for a while because of COVID,” he said, adding most of his previous stage performances were in musicals. “I found this play and thought it looked kind of cool so figured I should audition.”
Maggie Warner, a Grade 6 student from Debert, plays Mrs. Bradman, the wife of a friend of Condomine.
“She is kind of a geek,” Maggie offered with a chuckle, about her character. “She seems into all this fortune teller and magic stuff.”
A challenge and learning component for Maggie with her character was the opportunity to develop a backstory for Mrs. Bradman since it’s not really explored in the play.
“We actually had a project where we came up with backstories,” she said. “It was mostly for the characters who don’t have a backstory told in the play.
“So it was kind of fun to figure out her emotions because she is very sheltered; women from that era didn’t really talk about themselves that much. It was challenging but fun to try and dig a little deeper.”
For Maggie, her theatre backstory includes a play and a musical, so this will be her third production.
“But I’ve done a lot of competitive dancing and onstage stuff before I got into plays and musicals,” she said about her experience.
Ethen and Maggie said to familiarize themselves with the source material, they viewed the black-and-white movie version of the play, which came out in 1945 and starred Rex Harrison.
“When I heard there would be auditions, I watched the movie so I would be more familiar with it, just so I would do better,” Maggie said. “I really liked it too. It’s fun, extreme, and exaggerated, so I thought it would be fun to act in.”
For Ethen, it was after he was cast as Charles that he watched the movie.
“Once I did that, I fell in love with it,” he said. “It’s one of my favourite plays now.”
The youth players also talked about the challenges of preparing a play amid COVID.
“Originally, we were doing six hours a week, four hours on the weekend, and two hours during the week,” Maggie said, adding that the schedule was disruptive by COVID, so they have had to make up for lost time with the performance dates coming closer.
Ethen added it’s about being extra cautious.
“You kind of have to stay away from people and not get sick,” he said. “There is only one opportunity to perform in the show.”
For more on the play, visit Hubtown Theatre’s website at hubtowntheatre.ca or Facebook page. The Marigold Cultural Centre’s website is marigoldcentre.ca.