This time, home is the Ahmanson Theatre, where the 89-year-old Tony winner and honorary Oscar recipient has settled in for a six-week run of Noel Coward's comedy "Blithe Spirit."
This is Lansbury's third time around with Coward's 1941 farce, which is propelled by a medium who accidentally conjures the ghost of a writer's precocious wife. Lansbury played the clairvoyant Madame Arcati on Broadway in 2009. She reprised the role last spring on the West End.
Now, she's taking the character on the road for a four-city North American tour that began in Los Angeles Dec. 9.
"It's a role that I enjoy playing tremendously," Lansbury said in a
recent interview, adding it was a no-brainer returning to a part "that
really, really makes the audience sit up and say, 'Oh my gosh, what is
she doing now?'"
Lansbury will be packing up the character and moving on soon, with the
"Spirit" company heading to San Francisco, Toronto and ending up in
Washington, D.C.