Magic in the Air: Bay Street offers "Bell, Book and Candle"

For its first production of the mainstage season Bay Street Theatre has reached back into the vault and dusted off a classic — John van Druten’s “Bell, Book and Candle” a romantic little number from the early 1950s about a lonely witch looking for love in New York City.

Veteran director Jack Hofsiss, who has done fine work at Bay Street in recent years, is at the helm once again for this light-hearted production. The action takes place in the Murray Hill apartment of Gillian Holroyd (Arija Bareikis), an attractive and fashionable young woman who also happens to be a very powerful witch. Despite the frequent company of her eccentric aunt and fellow witch, Miss Holroyd (Gordana Rashovich) and mischievous younger brother, Nicky (Matt McGrath) — a warlock — Gillian is quite lonely. It’s the holiday season and the coven meetings and nightlife that her brother and aunt so enjoy leave Gillian feeling wholly unsatisfied. With eyes for Shepherd — Shep for short — Henderson (Sam Robards) the mortal who lives upstairs, Gillian begins to wonder if a witch might be able to hope for more in life.

Van Druten has given his city witches real and considerable powers, which makes the play a good deal of fun. They are able to dim lights, select music, interrupt telephone service and ease themselves into other’s apartments without lifting much more than a finger. They also keep familiars (pets used to transmit their spells) and can summon visitors at will. Van Druten also added the well considered provision that their magic can’t defy logical explanation — spells must remain within the realm of the plausible. It’s a clever twist that leaves mortals wondering whether fates that befall them are the result of sheer coincidence or something more.

The “something more” begins when Miss Holroyd senses Gillian’s interest in Shep. The aunt is already on the case and has been snooping in Shep’s apartment. So far she’s determined that he’s single, but dating a woman who just happens to be a college rival of Gillian’s and that the couple is set to announce their engagement in just a matter of days — on New Year’s Eve. 

Gillian would like to reel in Shep the old fashioned way, with beauty, wit and charm, but time is of the essence, so she casts a love spell on him using Pyewacket (her cat). On the surface, it’s just a game for her — one of the other by-laws van Druten has written is that witches lose their power if they fall in love — but in short order, Shep is at Gillian’s front door and she realizes she has gotten more than she bargained for with this spell. 

In the meantime, Sidney Redlitch (Jarlath Conroy), a famous author who has written questionable books on witchcraft, also finds his way to Gillian’s apartment under mysterious circumstances. Before long, he and Nicky are collaborating on a new book about New York witches which Shep has expressed an interest in publishing. None of the mortals suspect the Holroyds are witches, so when Gillian learns that Nicky is revealing real secrets and names in the book, rather than making it all up, sibling rivalry takes hold with a vengeance. Afraid their world will be destroyed by the revelation, she casts a spell to sabotage his efforts. In retaliation, Nicky casts a spell of his own that will reveal Gillian’s true nature. 

The cast puts forth good effort here, with McGrath bringing a playful amount of deviousness to his portrayal of Nicky. His spiteful edge helps heat things up and is a welcome distraction in a script that is somewhat restrained given the situation. Bareikis offers nice stage presence as Gillian, but she ultimately comes off a bit too soft to justify her role as the play’s central and most powerful character. Rashovich and Conroy are fun to watch as the aunt and Sidney Redlitch respectively, while Robards is very well cast and likeable as the often confounded and manipulated Shep. Jack Hofsiss has kept the production playful, as it should be, and Toni Leslie-James fun fashions evoke the era while Gary Hygom’s “Victorian meets fashionable ‘50s” set design in shades of red is expansive and funky — truly Bohemian, even if the characters don’t always come off that way themselves.

Chalk it up to timing. “Bell, Book and Candle” premiered on Broadway in 1950, and in those post-war halcyon days of perfect lawns and idyllic suburbs, the notion of witches coexisting among clueless mortals was probably quite exotic — subversive with otherworldly undertones. But these days, “Bell, Book and Candle” feels like a sweet trip down memory lane, complete with a sound track provided by several late, great crooners. Gillian’s world is one of a different generation — that of our parents or even grandparents. Much has transpired since the buttoned up and slicked back 1950s and for those of us born in the latter half of the 20th century, raised as we were on “Bewitched” re-runs and the free love of the 1960s, it’s difficult to visit this play with the benefit of hindsight. 

It’s too bad that van Druten opted to make his witch chose between love and power. Gillian has a way with magic, but her refusal to use it because of a man is maddening. The issue of sacrifice may go to the heart of what it is to love, but in this case, it seems more an unfortunate reflection of those days when women — witches or not — were expected to abandon all they had attained in order to “bag their man.” Independence, career, the ability to cast spells — it’s all the same when tossed overboard for a husband and a house in Levittown. 

Most of us grew up believing we could have it all — power and love — and though not everyone succeeds in striking that balance, this is one genie that can’t be put back in the bottle. Would van Druten have seen it differently had he written his play 20 years later? Probably. And we can only imagine what a force of nature Gillian would have been to reckon with in that case.

“Bell, Book and Candle” runs through June 28 at Bay Street Theatre, Long Wharf, Sag Harbor. For tickets call 725-9500.

Above: Arija Bareikis as the bewitching Gillian with Sam Robards, the bewildered mortal, Shep, who is the focus of her affections. Gary Mamay photo.