March 16 (Bloomberg) -- When a scintillating comedy, masterly direction and superior performances come together, what have you got? A rip-roaring revival of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” that lights up Broadway’s Shubert Theatre.

Angela Lansbury’s splendid portrayal of the psychic Madame Arcati is the highlight of a show whose stellar cast includes Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersole and Jayne Atkinson. Under the wizardly guidance of Michael Blakemore, the laughter never stops, though it stings as well as tickles.

The very title, derived tongue-in-cheek from the first line of Shelley’s “To a Skylark,” is a bit of genius, as Thornton Wilder was one of the first to remark. “Spirit” suggests the spirited fun one can have with ghosts, while “blithe” is a word that winks at you with mischief.

Writer Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth are mature, sophisticated people ensconced in a comfortable Kentish home. They have invited a friendly couple, Dr. and Mrs. Bradman, to watch Madame Arcati perform a seance, for skeptical amusement as well as for Charles’s research into a novel about a homicidal medium.

What gets conjured up, however, is mayhem of a different sort. It is the ghost of Charles’s first wife, Elvira, frilly but also tart, bent on getting her hands on Charles and her nails into Ruth. At first only Charles can see and hear her, which makes everyone, especially Ruth, perceive him as drunk or unhinged. When Elvira, scheming to take Charles with her into the beyond, becomes fully manifest, the wives engage in comically mortal combat. Can Madame Arcati perform a desperately needed exorcism?

Ghostly Ebersole

There ensues one of the wittiest plays in the English language, which Coward -- incredibly -- tossed off in five days at a Welsh resort. Everything works here: brilliantly handled exposition, sharply etched characterization, an expertly shaken cocktail of high and low humor, with dialogue that leaps acrobatically from breakneck farce to exultant comedy.

Coward can coax sparks from mere knocked-together pebbles. Take this exchange between a rueful husband soliciting the attention of his resentful wife hostilely buried in the morning paper: “Anything interesting in The Times?” “Don’t be silly, Charles.” A consummate dig at the often unsympathetic press.

As Ruth, the wonderful Atkinson is apt at physical and verbal comedy while remaining impeccably, staunchly British. As Elvira, Ebersole is the most adorably irritating, flutteringly ferocious revenant that ever danced out of the blue. Everett, somewhat too young for Condomine and a bit too callow, nevertheless is equally good when cynical as when frantic.

Soaring Lansbury

But everything, even the best, pales beside Lansbury’s Madame Arcati. Observe what she can do when someone incautiously refers to her “tricks of the trade.”

“Tricks of the trade?” she repeats with a rising inflection that, well beyond skewering mere insolence, could pierce an overflying pigeon. And what stratospheric dudgeon in her hurt-distorted face. Yes, she may be over the top, but when that is a pirouette on the summit of Everest, who would say nay? Hers is a high comic art that leaves you as dissolving in laughter as rapt in worshipful wonder.

The excellent others -- Simon Jones, Deborah Rush and Susan Louise O’Connor -- nicely confirm the old adage about there being, for big enough actors, no small parts. And then there is Blakemore’s direction, always extracting every last bit of comic ore while adding precious nuggets of its own. Peter J. Davison’s judicious decor, Martin Pakledinaz’s characterful costumes and Brian MacDevitt’s ultrasmart lighting add their flawless support.

This exuberant production soars as high as Shelley’s skylark, and is a whole lot funnier. Though Coward, in a rare gesture of understatement, claimed for himself only a talent to amuse, that was no talent. That was genius.

Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44th St. Information: +1-212-239- 6200, or visit http://www.blitheonbroadway.

(John Simon is the New York drama critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: John Simon in New York at jis1925@aol.com.

Last Updated: March 15, 2009 22:30 EDT