Commentary: Broadway all about Angela Lansbury

November 06, 2008 Last week, she hosted a gala benefit for Career Transition for Dancers at New York's City Center; in February, she'll be back on a bona fide Broadway stage, eight times per week, in a major revival of Noel Coward's great comedy "Blithe Spirit," playing the daffy, eccentric, bicycle-riding medium Madame Arcati, which Lansbury says "is the one role I've always wanted to play." The play is unquestionably one of Coward's best and funniest, the roles are rich, and the cast is ace; besides Lansbury, there will be Rupert Everett and Christine Ebersole co-starring in the parts done by Rex Harrison and Kay Hammond in the 1945 film. The most recent actress to play the role in a Main Stem house was Geraldine Page in a 1987 revival that teamed Richard Chamberlain, Blythe Danner and Judith Ivey.

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