Excerpt length does not work

Hi – The setting for having an excerpt on the main blog page don’t see to be working. Not only do they not show an excerpt, but instead show the full text, but also the second post on down is italicized entirely. I tried adding the Advanced Excerpt plugin one I’ve used on many other sites with success, to override both issues but the theme is not recognizing allowing it.

https://adennisonmarketing.com/betsywp/articles/

thanks!