Two women who dreamed of becoming professional actors in childhood are currently engaged in an onstage conflict as the former and current wives of novelist Charles Condomine in Noel Coward’s classic comedy Blithe Spirit, playing until August 1 at the Studio Theatre in Perth.

For Paula Costain, performing as current wife Ruth this summer with the Classic Theatre Festival has felt like coming full circle, since she grew up watching one of her fellow actors, William Vickers (playing Dr. Bradman), at Regina’s Globe Theatre.

“We had a reception when we first got to Perth and immediately recognized each other, which was great,” Costain says. “When I got my first professional role, he was playing on the next stage as Billy Bishop.”

Early on, Costain recognized that “I like temporarily becoming other people, and as a kid I found it frustrating being saddled with one set of circumstances. I feel more energized and connected to the world when I act. I like being a storyteller. I know it affects me when I see good theatre, because it helps me understand things about the world.”

“There’s a real catharsis with stage when audiences can relate to and recognize what the characters on stage are going through.”

While she took some psychology courses in university, Costain focused on theatre studies, learning to “accept people with all of their contradictions. People are not just black and white, and when I get into a character, it helps me understand and accept humanity.”

Speaking of her role in Blithe Spirit, Costain notes, “there are no villains in this play. We need to look at why people behave the way they do.”

Starting out in Regina, including working at the same theatre as Vickers, Costain co-founded her own theatre company and after seven years in Saskatchewan, migrated east to Montreal, where she has worked for, among others, the Centaur Theatre, as well as doing film, television, and commercial work. She is currently featured in two nationwide commercials. One, she pauses before explaining, is for a laxative, while she is also the voice of Bel Air Car Insurance, ads she enjoys doing for their “wacky sense of humour.” Costain is also busy working on a screenplay and is shopping around a television series that she hopes to see produced in the near future.

“Being in Perth this summer has felt very holistic,” she says, noting “none of us feels like strangers in town. We’ve been meeting and speaking with people on the streets, in the shops, in the restaurants. It’s been great.”

 Another now-familiar face to Perth residents is Emily Bartlett, who plays Costain’s on-stage rival, the ghostly Elvira, who has returned from “the other side” to haunt the Condomine residence. Currently featured in a national commercial for Manulife Insurance, Bartlett hails from Saint John, where, as the daughter of a journalist and a librarian who encouraged their daughter to watch classic performances on BBC, she started taking drama classes at an early age.

“I was very much inspired by a professional director who worked at the local high school, and it was a light bulb moment for me when she encouraged me to take the idea of becoming an actor seriously,” Bartlett explains.

Following work at York University’s Acting Conservatory and the Canadian National Voice Intensive, she immediately jumped into the role of Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. She says such training helped her prepare for her role in Noel Coward’s work this summer.

“Period work is great fun: the language, the costumes, the feel is very different, and while it is a challenge it’s a lot of fun. Elvira is a different role for me, playing the role of a selfish seductress, but it’s permission to be bad. I also like tormenting Paula while we’re in character onstage, but backstage it’s good and goofy.”

Bartlett grew up watching Shakespeare by the Sea in Halifax’s Point Pleasant Park, and eventually auditioned and was accepted by the company, where she met her fiancé, actor Kevin Curran (the two became engaged shortly after the opening of Blithe Spirit).

After closing Blithe Spirit, Bartlett will return to Toronto to promote a new film in which she appears, Magnifier, the tale of a young boy obsessed about space travel in the 1950s. Until then, she plans to continue enjoying her time here walking through Stewart Park, catching a coffee and some internet time at the Factory Grind, and walking the dog at the house where she has been billeted.

“Perth reminds me of the small towns where I grew up in New Brunswick,” Bartlett says. “I feel so comfortable here, everyone says hello, asks questions about the show. Someone the other day said I look a lot taller on stage. I explained it was the heels!”

Blithe Spirit runs Wed.-Sat at 8 pm, with 2 pm matinees every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. It is followed by the Second World War romantic comedy, The Voice of the Turtle, the 9^th longest running show in Broadway history, playing August 6-29. Tickets are available at www.classictheatre.ca, at 1-877-283-1283, or at Jo’s Clothes, 39 Foster Street.