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Two More Week-ends:PHOENIX, Page Five'Blithe Spirit' Soars At PlayersBY GINA LEBOWITZThe Heights Players production of Noel Coward%u2019s entertaining %u201c Blithe Spirit%u201d picks up momentum after the first act and the sophisticated wit remains constant throughout, as Charles Condomine, nicely played by Andy Krawitz, his present wife Ruth, Madame Arcati, the Medium, and friends attempt to communicate with the spirit world.The problems begin when Madame Arcati, brilliantly played by Frances Breitbart, rematerializes Charles%u2019 first wife Elvira, and then doesn%u2019t quite know how to de-materialize her. (Madame Arcati may well have the best lines of the play, which Ms. Breitbart delivers in properly dotty fashion. In response to %u201ctime is drawing near,%u201d she replies, %u201cWho knows, it may be receding.%u201d We also note her love affair with cucumber sandwiches).Elvira, played mischievously by Karen Richter, turns out to be an%u201cectoplasmic manifestation about as sweet as a puff adler.%u201d As Charles is the only one who can see her %u2014 presumably since he called her back (at the seance, after the knock on the table and his sense of what is about to occur, he says, %u201ctell them to leave a message%u201d ) %u2014 Elvira wreaks her mischief on Ruth, determined to get Charles to %u201cgo over%u201d to the other side with her. Ruth, played by Liz Thackston, seemed abrasively acted at first, but as the play progressed, she revealed her stalwart and sustaining qualities.Ms. Thackston plays Ruth with a brittleness that makes us realize she is the only firm grip on reality going in the play, and when she is %u201cdisappeared%u201d by Elvira in a car accident meant for Charles at the end of Act II, we are relieved to see her conjured up again by Madame Arcati in Act III, spirit though she may now be.Charles, it turns out, is delighted to have Madame Arcati, mumbling a seventeenth-century charm andgoing into one of her numerous %u2014 comical trances, (using Edith, the kf maid, as Medium and played for ^ wonderful comic effects by Jean c Houston), de-materialize both his s wives %u2014 even if only, we are led to 3 suspect, temporarily. The pace is ^ thoroughly set by the middle of the o second act, and doesn%u2019t slow down thereafter until the hectic unwinding of the climax is completed.One%u2019s only other comments on a thoroughly witty and wellperformed production are that the staging ^ould have been a bit more careful. Charles occasionally blocked Madame Arcati from view, for example, and sometimes the lines come at one a bit too fast to savor thoroughly. The players also seem to close for a play that one suspects might be viewed to better advantage and perspective at more of a remove from the audience.Blithe Spirit, directed by John Bourne, continues through this weekend and the next at the Alfred T. White Community Center, 26 Willow PI.BAM Gospel ChoirsSend Audience HigherBY CORRINE COLEMANGospel: Roots of Soul: thelatest in the Brooklyn Academy of Music series illustrating the major themes in black sound, started out cool and relatively soft last Sunday with the singing of the Bethel Baptist Church Choir from Boerum Hill. The calmly appreciativeRichard GetsPolitical Slant%u201c Richard II,%u201d William Shakespeare%u2019s rarely-performed play about the battle for political power, will be performed Thursday, through Tuesday, March 15- 20 at Brooklyn College. It is set for an 8 p.m. curtain in the college%u2019s Gershwin Theater, Campus Road and Hillel Place, near the Flatbush-Nostrand intersection in Brooklyn.The Shakespeare drama, last produced on Broadway 20 years ago with Maurice Evans in the lead role, traces the conflict between King Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke, later to become King Henry IV. One of Shakespeare%u2019s earliest but best character plays, it describes the attempts of each man to keep or obtain power, leading to the ultimate death of Richard with Bolingbroke%u2019s acquiescence.%u201cOur production will view the play particularly as a political one rather than a psychological study of one character,%u201d said Bernard Barrow, director and associate professor in the college%u2019s speech and theater department. %u201cWe%u2019ll be attampting to show the good and evil in each of the main characters and how these traits are warped by the need for power.%u201dHe noted that the language of the play is quite extraordinary, about 80 per cent of it being rhymed couplets. The two-part production will be performed as a period drama, with Elizabethan costumes and a unit set.mood continued through the performance of The Brothers, a 10- man group featuring rhythm instruments. Temperatures began to soar, however, with the rising of the voices of the Renaissance Choir of Newark, who, delayed by a cross-Hudson traffic snag, disappointed with a to -short performance. The audience, on its way up with the singers, was forced to face too quickly the curtain%u2019s dropping and the intermission lights.Second part, however, brought the listeners back, when the Bibleway Church of Christ Choir, in dramatic purple robes resumed the group turn on with %u201cGoing Through,%u201d and %u201cOn My Way to Heaven And I%u2019m So Glad.%u201d But it soon seemed that the Bed Stuy choir had but created the path for the orgiastic engagement of theK L Y N H E I G H T S C i n c m o tHELD OVER thru Tues.Mar.20 j f f The most emoyable itHW Fellini in a dozen years, the most surprising, the most exuberant, | i the most beautiful. J J- New York l imes%u201cFELLINI%u2019S ROMA%u201dI Sun . tin U Th u n : 2:30-4:45-7:00-9:15 I F !. & Sol: 1:30-3:45-6:00-8:15-10:30following contingent. Up, up, up, the audience moved with The New York Community Choir. They seem to be ever approaching and then nearly reaching an ecstatic peak %u2014 but no %u2014 the fever kept rising, more and more people stood up, as the group, headed by a lead vocalist in a long yellow dress sang, %u201c Higher%u201d %u2014%u25a0 %u201c Lets Go Higher.%u201d Soon nearly half the opera house was up %u2014 moving %u2014 dancing %u2014 shouting. And those remaining seated were marked by the same %u201c sent expression, seeming to be pleading without words, %u201cDon%u2019t Stop!%u201dBut the group finally came down, and amidst cheers and raves left the stage. The J. C. White Singers who closed the program led a more sober scene, but kept the audience tight with its cooler more gentle style.70 HENRY ST a! ORANGE ST-------Tel 596 -7070Wed. thru Tues. Mar. 14-20 It may well be his loveliest film. Rogir G'0*ntpun MV Tim0%ROBERT BRESSON S4 NIGHTS OFft DREAMERSun. thru Thurs: 4:00-7:00-10:00 Fri. & Sat: 1:45-4:45-7:45-10:45UNI FEMME DOUCESun. thru Thurs: 2:30-5:30-8:30 Fri. & Sat: 3:15-6:15-9:15MA 4 9774 5 TO 10 P.M.O L i < ^A /{e x :Lc o15 MONTAGUE STREET.121 Atlantic Ave. 625-8539featuring:\Sat. & Sun., N o o n -4 P.M.OPEN FOR LUNCH AN D DINNER SEVEN DAYSKaren Richter plays blviraWe have designs on you. We don%u2019t make sizesj we make fashions that fit. Bring in a pattern or idea with your fabric and let us sew for you?We do alterations, too: l-5pni Saturdays.^*-WOMAN AT LARGEThe Sewing & Needlepoint Experts of Park Slope181 7th Ave.betw. 1st & 2nd Sts965-2938 Open Tues.-Fri. 11-6 Sat. 10-6am65666768FOUR UNIQUE EVENTS /A M E R C E |Cunningham A N D D A N C E ^C O M P A N YEvent 65: March 22, 8 P.M. Event 67: March 24, 8 P.M. Event 66 March 23, 8 P.M. Event 68: March 25, 2 P.M.S6.50, 5.50, 4.00, 3.00Brooklyn Rcodemy of fBusic30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217 Tickets at ASiS, BloommqdaJes and Ticketron BOX OFFICE and Group Rdte Information (212) 783 6700Spanish Restaurantp r e s e n t s a t t h e1 1 1 PIANETSPOMEROY &RON JOSEPHSjoj%u00a9 musicFRIDAYth8 : 0 0 mReserved Seats%u00a3$3.50 $3.00 $2.50TICKETSAcademy Box Office 30 Lafayette Ave.Brooklyn Heights Cinema 70 Henry St.Inform ation 7 8 3 -2 4 3 4