Set designer James Schuette and the Trinity production staff lavished attention on details of the room, including the knickknacks displayed on the mantel and the songbird wallpaper.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

One of the classiest pieces of real estate in Providence right now is yours for the price of admission to Trinity Repertory Company.

For the production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, playing through May 4, New York set designer James Schuette and Trinity’s crack production team have come up with a stunning English country house, complete with period details, elegant furnishings and more than a few special effects.

They have given us a room ripped from the cover of Architectural Digest, a sumptuous space that has all the feel of lived-in quarters. Books are stacked beneath a baby grand, shoes are cast aside under a chair, and a warm glow pours from the fireplace.

This is not to slight the Trinity cast and director Curt Columbus, who are doing a bang-up job with this droll comedy about a supernatural love triangle. But in this case, the set seems just as important as what’s happening on it.

“It’s almost a performance unto itself,” said Tony Estrella, artistic director of Pawtucket’s Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, who was on hand opening night. “For people who enjoy wallpaper, moldings and furniture, it’s a feast.”

Estrella recommends that audience members show up early enough to savor the set’s endless trappings, so they won’t become a distraction once the play gets under way. “It’s kind of like a pre-show,” he said.

Trinity production director Laura Smith couldn’t recall when a set has engendered a more positive buzz. When she attended opening night with two architect friends, they were singing the praises of the stage design before Smith could settle into her seat.

“I haven’t heard this much discussion about a set in a long time,” she said.

Clearly, it’s the details that make Schuette’s (pronounced Shoo-tee) set stand out. And in some cases only the actors can see them.

A tucked-away foyer to the right of the stage is a world unto itself, with an ornate mirror and a floor painted to look like marble. Overshoes are lined up under an end table with a dish piled with a page from Hamlet, large brass keys and folded leather gloves.

Next to that, French doors open onto a lush green patio bordered by a towering hedge of artificial boxwood and pots of fake begonias. The patio floor is created from painted carpet pads made to look like squares of slate. Leaves and tiny pink petals are strewn across the decking, as though left there from a recent rain.

And while there appears to be a fire burning in the fireplace, the orange glow is actually created from a bank of colored lights. Jets of steam blow across the fake flames to resemble smoke.

But the Blithe Spirit set calls for more than just homey touches. Writer Charles Condomine, the play’s main character, lives in a haunted house. Charles is doing research on a book and hires a medium to conduct a séance at his home, when he inadvertently conjures the ghost of his dead first wife. She moves in, causing nothing but trouble for his second marriage.

So the set has doors that mysteriously open, a ghost who glides through a wall, and books that topple from their shelves.

Technical director Karl Orrall came up with a mechanism to operate the haunted French doors. Metal arms attached to the doors are operated by ropes kept out of view from the audience.

“We try to do things fast and dirty,” said Orrall.

Hidden stage crew members open and shut the solid doors leading to the dining room.

In some cases, the best magical effects are the most low-tech. The tipping table in the séance scenes is not operated by sophisticated hydraulics but by an actor’s foot jammed under its pedestal base.

Initially, Columbus was hoping to hire Schuette to design the set for Some Things Are Private, the recent look at the work of controversial photographer Sally Mann, but he was booked. But Schuette said he would be interested in Blithe Spirit.

A surprised Columbus reminded him that the show is something of a chestnut, but Columbus quoted Schutte as saying it is “one of my favorite shows. I could never get tired of it.”

Schuette was especially glad to learn that Columbus was doing a period version.

“I think Coward’s plays work best if you do them in the proper period,” said Schuette.

Schuette first visited the theater about a year ago. He checked out the space and worked up a preliminary sketch. Detailed drawings followed.

“If you read the play,” said Schuette, “it’s all there. It became pretty obvious.”

Discussions were then held about such things as moldings (they came pre-milled from New York) and wallpaper.

As the set came together, Schuette and properties master Michael Getz toured local fabric mills and Rustigian Rugs in Fox Point, which loaned the theater a couple of lavish carpets.

The rest of the props, like the glittering chandelier, came from the theater’s warehouse on the south side of the city.

Smith said Schuette objected to a couple of pieces from the warehouse, but once they were refinished and stained, he had no problem. Most of the furniture has been reupholstered and refinished for the show.

The actual set took about two weeks to build, although that’s with crews working around the clock.

The carpenters usually quit about 5, the electricians a few hours after that. Then painter Philip Creeh would take over and work through the night, adding the marble patterns on the particle-board fireplace, and painting the parquet squares on the floor.

The main flooring is made from strips of cheap luan plywood stained to look like oak. It was installed in about a day. Much of the set, in fact, is made from layers of plywood made to resemble fancy woodwork.

“If we didn’t paint it, you wouldn’t be so wowed by it,” said Smith.

Creech also knocked off a couple of Picasso-style paintings, which hang on the walls and let us know that Charles is a man of taste and sophistication, who has done his share of art collecting.

Getz, who worked on the show before at another theater, and Schuette then went wild “dressing” the set, adding vases stuffed with reading glasses, vintage family portraits on the piano and those shoes under the chair, which just underscore the fact that Charles’ ditzy maid, Edith, is not the best housekeeper in England.

Yards of Victorian-style fringe were generously applied to the furniture and lamp shades, and fake shrubs were ordered from Ohio.

What did all this cost? Not as much as you’d think, or, to put it another way, a little less than the $20,000 Trinity often budgets for sets and props. Smith estimated the total production bill for Blithe Spirit at about $18,000, which breaks down to $7,000 for carpentry, $9,000 for props and another $2,000 for paint.

Smith said the production staff works well ahead of schedule so that it can look for the best deals possible. The wallpaper Schuette suggested came in at $7,000. Trinity found an alternative, a wall covering with songbirds perched on willowy branches, for $700.

Smith was able to e-mail a sample of the new paper to Schuette for his approval.“If he hated it we would’ve had a conversation,” said Smith, “but with money I can step in and say, ‘I totally understand you want this, but guess what, it’s not happening.’

“You try to have a dialogue, but, bottom line, it’s our money.”

The trick with any set, though, said Smith, is to get “as much bang for the buck.” It’s a matter using a pot of paint and a few sheets of plywood to enchant the audience. A lot of what goes on in a set like this is, in other words, scenic sleight of hand.

“It’s reality,” said Schuette. “It’s just not solid reality. There’s a lot of paste and luck up there.”

cgray@projo.com