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‘Hay Fever’ at Great Lakes is great ensemble acting
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Reviewed by: FRAN HELLER Contributing Writer
At the close of Act I of “Hay Fever,” Noel Coward’s comedy soufflé about the eccentric, ill-mannered Bliss family, all the characters are taking tea, sitting in uneasy silence with teacups suspended in mid-air.
It’s a stunning visual tableau and only one example of the superlative ensemble acting that ripples through the Great Lakes Theater Festival production running through April 21. Superbly directed by Charles Fee, artistic director of GLTF, “Hay Fever” is pure froth. But never has such silliness been so sublime.
The action takes place at the Blisses’ country home. Unbeknownst to the others, each family member has invited a guest for the weekend. Judith Bliss, a perennially retired actress, has invited amateur boxer Sandy, a younger man infatuated with the celebrated star. Judith’s husband David writes romance novels. His guest is the dimwitted flapper Jackie, whom he wishes to observe as a character study.
Sorel and Simon are the Bliss offspring. Hungry for some normalcy, Sorel has invited stuffy diplomatist Richard, while Simon, eager to flex his manhood, has asked an older woman, socialite Myra Arundel.
The bohemian Blisses are a quarrelsome, bad-mannered lot who either ignore their guests or treat them rudely. All hell breaks loose when the hosts play switcheroo and the flummoxed guests end up with different partners.
The Bliss family is based on real life eccentrics, whom Coward met on a trip to New York. His hostess, actress Laurette Taylor, and her playwright husband Hartley Manners played the kind of word games that open Act II.
“Hay Fever,” written in three days when Coward was in his mid-20s, was the first of his plays to be considered a masterpiece. It was a success in London in 1925 but flopped on Broadway.
Coward draws heavily on his theatrical background as both actor and playwright. His characters are theatrical and artistic types: narcissistic, temperamental and egotistical. Constant bickering and verbal fencing are the hallmarks of his plays.
There is little in the way of plot or character development. It is all situation and razor-sharp wit. “We none of us ever mean anything,” says Sorel Bliss wisely.
The success of Coward’s comedies depends upon the actors’ abilities to carry off the fast tempo and volley of brilliant dialogue. Under Fee’s airtight direction and a fabulous cast who play off each other in perfect harmony, this delightful production doesn’t skip a beat. Fee keeps the high comedy from spilling over into farce, and the three-act play whizzes by.
Role-playing is what binds the Blisses together. Unbeknownst to their guests, their unconventional behavior is all an act. For this family, there is no distinction between life and art. Their lunacy is a kind of “hay fever” and an antidote against boredom.
The guests are foils for the family’s theatrics and no match for their manipulative and clever hosts.
It’s a comedy of “bad” manners in which the dramatic and self-absorbed Blisses play “get the guests.” (It’s likely that Edward Albee drew his own model for the games George and Martha play in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” from the comic master Coward.)
Judith is the comic linchpin. She bursts upon the scene in the first act, shedding her garden galoshes with grandiose insouciance. The play moves into comedic high gear in the second act when the games begin.
As the flamboyant Judith, Kathleen Pirkl Tague’s melodramatic mood shifts are comic acting at its best. Tague’s over-the-top performance is so smooth that it is hard to tell when she is playing Judith as Judith or Judith the actress in a scene from her last play.
Judith manipulates Richard into trying to seduce her. “David’s been a good husband, but he’s wearing a bit thin,” she sighs. When Richard takes the bait, she instantly dons the mask of the contrite wife. “David must be told everything,” emotes Judith, waving her handkerchief with great flourish.
Catching Sorel and Sandy kissing, she instantly becomes the rejected older woman. Upon discovering Myra and David locked in an embrace, she becomes the wronged wife willing to relinquish her husband.
Regal Laura Perrotta is exquisite as Judith’s foil, the sharp-tongued Myra. Sparks fly between the two women as they trade barbs and insults. Myra sees through the family’s pretense, describing the Blisses as an infuriating set of hypocrites.
Aled Davies, as the self-absorbed husband David, is the unflappable straight man to Judith’s histrionics. Jeffrey C. Hawkins and Sara M. Bruner are excellent as the insufferably precocious siblings Simon and Sorel, who dress and behave like grownup adolescents.
Laura Welsh is adorable as the insipid Jackie Coryton, moved to tears by her hosts’ horrid treatment of their guests, especially David, who invited her and can’t even remember who she is. A ruffled Jackie is soothed by Sandy (Lynn Robert Berg), an affable chap who, like Jackie, is dumbfounded by his lunatic hosts. David Anthony Smith is suitably stodgy as the strait-laced Richard Greatham. Elizabeth Ann Townsend is adequate as the long-suffering, disgruntled housekeeper Clara.
Gage Williams’s casually elegant replica of the book-strewn English country home, offset by the requisite grand piano, handsomely sets the stage.
Nicole Frachiseur’s tony costumes mirror the upper class social milieu. The elegant attire in the second act is a ravishing variation on black and red.
“Hay Fever” is a trifle of a play, but the GLTF production is a grand work of art.
“Hay Fever” runs in rotating repertory with “The Tempest” (opening March 30) at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. 216-241-6000 or www.greatlakes theater.org.
At the close of Act I of “Hay Fever,” Noel Coward’s comedy soufflé about the eccentric, ill-mannered Bliss family, all the characters are taking tea, sitting in uneasy silence with teacups suspended in mid-air.
It’s a stunning visual tableau and only one example of the superlative ensemble acting that ripples through the Great Lakes Theater Festival production running through April 21. Superbly directed by Charles Fee, artistic director of GLTF, “Hay Fever” is pure froth. But never has such silliness been so sublime.
The action takes place at the Blisses’ country home. Unbeknownst to the others, each family member has invited a guest for the weekend. Judith Bliss, a perennially retired actress, has invited amateur boxer Sandy, a younger man infatuated with the celebrated star. Judith’s husband David writes romance novels. His guest is the dimwitted flapper Jackie, whom he wishes to observe as a character study.
Sorel and Simon are the Bliss offspring. Hungry for some normalcy, Sorel has invited stuffy diplomatist Richard, while Simon, eager to flex his manhood, has asked an older woman, socialite Myra Arundel.
The bohemian Blisses are a quarrelsome, bad-mannered lot who either ignore their guests or treat them rudely. All hell breaks loose when the hosts play switcheroo and the flummoxed guests end up with different partners.
The Bliss family is based on real life eccentrics, whom Coward met on a trip to New York. His hostess, actress Laurette Taylor, and her playwright husband Hartley Manners played the kind of word games that open Act II.
“Hay Fever,” written in three days when Coward was in his mid-20s, was the first of his plays to be considered a masterpiece. It was a success in London in 1925 but flopped on Broadway.
Coward draws heavily on his theatrical background as both actor and playwright. His characters are theatrical and artistic types: narcissistic, temperamental and egotistical. Constant bickering and verbal fencing are the hallmarks of his plays.
There is little in the way of plot or character development. It is all situation and razor-sharp wit. “We none of us ever mean anything,” says Sorel Bliss wisely.
The success of Coward’s comedies depends upon the actors’ abilities to carry off the fast tempo and volley of brilliant dialogue. Under Fee’s airtight direction and a fabulous cast who play off each other in perfect harmony, this delightful production doesn’t skip a beat. Fee keeps the high comedy from spilling over into farce, and the three-act play whizzes by.
Role-playing is what binds the Blisses together. Unbeknownst to their guests, their unconventional behavior is all an act. For this family, there is no distinction between life and art. Their lunacy is a kind of “hay fever” and an antidote against boredom.
The guests are foils for the family’s theatrics and no match for their manipulative and clever hosts.
It’s a comedy of “bad” manners in which the dramatic and self-absorbed Blisses play “get the guests.” (It’s likely that Edward Albee drew his own model for the games George and Martha play in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” from the comic master Coward.)
Judith is the comic linchpin. She bursts upon the scene in the first act, shedding her garden galoshes with grandiose insouciance. The play moves into comedic high gear in the second act when the games begin.
As the flamboyant Judith, Kathleen Pirkl Tague’s melodramatic mood shifts are comic acting at its best. Tague’s over-the-top performance is so smooth that it is hard to tell when she is playing Judith as Judith or Judith the actress in a scene from her last play.
Judith manipulates Richard into trying to seduce her. “David’s been a good husband, but he’s wearing a bit thin,” she sighs. When Richard takes the bait, she instantly dons the mask of the contrite wife. “David must be told everything,” emotes Judith, waving her handkerchief with great flourish.
Catching Sorel and Sandy kissing, she instantly becomes the rejected older woman. Upon discovering Myra and David locked in an embrace, she becomes the wronged wife willing to relinquish her husband.
Regal Laura Perrotta is exquisite as Judith’s foil, the sharp-tongued Myra. Sparks fly between the two women as they trade barbs and insults. Myra sees through the family’s pretense, describing the Blisses as an infuriating set of hypocrites.
Aled Davies, as the self-absorbed husband David, is the unflappable straight man to Judith’s histrionics. Jeffrey C. Hawkins and Sara M. Bruner are excellent as the insufferably precocious siblings Simon and Sorel, who dress and behave like grownup adolescents.
Laura Welsh is adorable as the insipid Jackie Coryton, moved to tears by her hosts’ horrid treatment of their guests, especially David, who invited her and can’t even remember who she is. A ruffled Jackie is soothed by Sandy (Lynn Robert Berg), an affable chap who, like Jackie, is dumbfounded by his lunatic hosts. David Anthony Smith is suitably stodgy as the strait-laced Richard Greatham. Elizabeth Ann Townsend is adequate as the long-suffering, disgruntled housekeeper Clara.
Gage Williams’s casually elegant replica of the book-strewn English country home, offset by the requisite grand piano, handsomely sets the stage.
Nicole Frachiseur’s tony costumes mirror the upper class social milieu. The elegant attire in the second act is a ravishing variation on black and red.
“Hay Fever” is a trifle of a play, but the GLTF production is a grand work of art.
“Hay Fever” runs in rotating repertory with “The Tempest” (opening March 30) at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. 216-241-6000 or www.greatlakes theater.org.
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