Since 1994, the Encores! series has been staging shows that had been languishing in musical-theater limbo. Now the first entry in the 2026 season, “High Spirits,” hinges on a séance, amusingly placing the production into conversation with the entire project. Was this particular ghost worth summoning from the Broadway graveyard?
The answer is an emphatic yes because we have the rare opportunity to hear a delightful score by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray performed by a 29-piece orchestra. Martin was a gifted composer and vocal arranger who is most famous for his contributions to the movie “Meet Me in St. Louis” — he knew how to turn a song, and several in “High Spirits” live up to the show’s title.
Mind you, just because the score is worth hearing does not mean its rendering, or the production by Jessica Stone (“Kimberly Akimbo”), always hits the mark. The first performance, on Wednesday evening at New York City Center, could feel flat sometimes — the weight of expectations could be felt with a cast led by the Broadway veterans Andrea Martin, Phillipa Soo, Steven Pasquale and Katrina Lenk.
It’s a safe bet that only dedicated aficionados of the art form will be familiar with “High Spirits,” which has not been back on Broadway since opening there in 1964 — in contrast, the musical’s source material, the Noël Coward play “Blithe Spirit” (1941), has enjoyed three revivals, most recently in 2009 with Angela Lansbury. While some high-profile shows, like “Into the Woods” and the coming “La Cage Aux Folles,” have sneaked into the Encores! programming, this outing closely hews to the original mission of the series: an obscure gem staged with big names, book in hand. In contrast to recent Encores!, in which scripts have been invisible and production values have gotten elaborate, there is a primal fun in watching the actors hold their binders in a relatively pared-down staging. The most distinctive elements are the magic and illusions designed by Skylar Fox, which are fairly minimal but effective for a show dealing with the supernatural.
The score’s authors, who also wrote the book, remained mostly loyal to Coward’s play (check out the rather macabre new ending). The novelist Charles Condomine (Pasquale) invites the eccentric medium Madame Arcati (Martin) to hold a session with spirits as research for a new book. He is stunned when the ghost of his late wife, Elvira (Lenk), suddenly turns up, an apparition who is seemingly made of ethereal silver. Charles’s current wife, Ruth (Soo), is none too happy by this development and expresses her insecurities in the song “Was She Prettier Than I?”
Developing deliciously amoral themes that echo the ones in the Coward plays “Private Lives” (about a divorced couple and their new partners) and “Design for Living” (about a ménage à trois), “High Spirits” is a comedy of remarriage in which jealousy, resentment and regret always lurk underneath the witticisms and blasé airs. (Billy Rosenfield’s script for Encores! adds Coward himself, played by Campbell Scott, as a completely unnecessary narrator.)
The character equivalent of fresh air through an opened window is Madame Arcati; her kooky energy loosens up everybody around her. Beefed up for the musical, the role was a vehicle for Beatrice Lillie in 1964, so much so that most of the review in The New York Times was a fountain of gushing about her.
Making her entrance on a bike affixed to a platform, Madame Arcati proceeds to deliver “The Bicycle Song” while energetically pedaling in place. Tentative at first, Martin got better and better as the evening progressed, nailing the part’s infectious enthusiasm. You understand why the character, who runs a cafe, would have young hipster followers, and the ensemble is put to good use in numbers that belong in the ever-hilarious musical canon of beatnik/hippie scenes, from “Funny Face” to “Sweet Charity” (which seems to have inspired some of the moves the choreographer Ellenore Scott’s devised for “Go Into Your Trance”).
Taking first-night jitters into consideration, especially after a short rehearsal period, Rachel Dratch made the most of very little as the Condomines’ maid, while Soo imbued Ruth with sly comic touches that include a stiff little martinet’s walk.
Musically, the production is at its most rewarding. The score and arrangements have the unmistakable mix of warmth and drive — those bongos! — of Broadway’s golden age, and the orchestra, under Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s direction, smoothly segues between lush finesse and brassy energy. If Lenk does not bring enough finger-snapping verve to “You’d Better Love Me,” she is more at ease in the slinky “Home Sweet Heaven” and in her duet with Pasquale “I Know Your Heart.” How can one resist being swayed by the line, “I’m drawn to you but I’m on to you”? Of such pleasures Encores! is made.
High Spirits Through Feb. 15 at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.
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