I had the poem by Shelley in mind, “To a Skylark,” when I named this blog, not the play by Noel Coward, and was confirmed in that a few months back at a performance of the play at Pleasant Home/Festival Theater, Oak Park.

The various lines came trippingly from the tongues of the players, and nobody fell down. But how many times can an audience respond heartily to the joke of a man talking at once to late and present wife, the one a shadow of her former self, i.e., a blithe spirit?

The ghost has her lines heard by the husband, he has his heard by both wives, and the present corporeal wife has hers heard by the other two. Get the picture? Spirit makes crack, husband replies to spirit in middle of conversation with live wife, who thinks he’s getting snarky with her. Etc. etc., over and over, signifying next to nothing.

But Coward so wants us to laugh, and we so want to on a playgoing night, that most of us do. I didn’t, after the first two or three, and bent over, staring at the floor for relief. This elicited a heartfelt response from the man behind me, who tapped me on my shoulder and asked if I was all right. I was sitting next to one easily taken, not mistaken, for my wife, who might be expected (accurately) to care a lot for my welfare; but he apparently thought her not caring a whit for me and my supposed trouble.

It was like being touched by the beadle in an 18th-century English church, the man in charge of being sure no one slept during the sermon. I told the man I was all right, but my answer should have been, “Depends what you mean by not all right.” But I did not cotton to discussing the play right then, and let it go where I let it.