‘Hayfever’ brings comic balance to UST’s season
Eccentricity and the arts have always been inextricably entwined, often in very humorous ways.
Beginning Thursday, theatergoers will have a chance to steal a comic glance into the world of intellectual creation as seen through the eyes of playwright, and art world insider, Noel Coward.
“[‘Hayfever’ is] so extremely well written,” director Adrianne Moore said. “I think its Coward’s funniest, wittiest piece. It’s really delightful.”
Set in the early 1920s in Great Britain, “Hayfever” is the story of an eventful weekend in the life of the Bliss family. Judith and David Bliss are the parents of two grown children, Simon and Sorel who all live together in Cookham, a small village situated along the Thames river between Windsor and Oxford. Judith, a famous but retired actress, spends much of her time tending her garden, while David writes novels.
The occupations of David and Judith are a major source of humor in the play.
“[Coward’s] having fun with the posing of artistic types,” Moore said. “He’s particularly having a good time at the expense of the artistic movement of the 1920s.”
As the play opens, the four members of the Bliss family reveal that they have each invited a guest to stay with them for the weekend. Even though none of the family members is happy with the choice of guests, Sandy, Myra, Richard and Jackie arrive right on schedule.
During the second act, after dinner, the family and the guests settle down to play parlor games. For the family, the games are full of clever witticisms and sly quips, but the guests find the game strange and get lost in the quickfire actions of their hosts.
The game eventually breaks up and the family begins romantic liasons with their guests, though not necessarily the guests they invited. Laughs abound as each of the newly formed and volatile relationships breaks down in the face of the families extreme and often false dramatics.
“One of the reasons the guests are so bemused, is they can never figure out when [the Bliss family] is being serious and when they’re playing their own complicated game only they know the rules of,” Moore said, adding that even though it was written more than 80 years ago, the play has a very modern feel to it.
“There’s nothing really highbrow about it,” she said. “It’s not one of those plays where you would think it was funny if you could just get the jokes. The humor in this is very accessible.”
Katie Ackerman who plays Judith Bliss, said that the language of the play, even though it was written in 1920’s England, shouldn’t be a barrier to the audience either.
“There are some colloquialisms that might be specific to England or to the time period,” she said, “but I don’t think in general it’s something people are going to be straining to figure out what they mean. It’s just like ‘oh, I’ve never heard that put that way before.’
Chosen as an integral part of the Utah State Theater 2004-05, “Hayfever” is intended to bring droll evenness to a season which has already seen productions of “Holes” and “The Laramie Project.”
“We try to get a balance of plays, both for the public’s sake and also because it’s an educational institution and one of the things we want to do is expose our students to a range of periods, range of genre’s, range of styles,” Moore said. “It’s been a while since we’ve produced just a hysterically funny comedy.”
Though Moore said most of the humor for the play comes in the verbal sparring between the characters, Richie Call, who plays Sandy, said the play does have visual gags.
“There is more physical humor in this play than any Noel Coward I’ve read,” Call said.
“Hayfever” will be performed Dec. 2-4 and 8-11 in the Morgan Theatre in the Kent Concert Hall. The production begins at 7:30. Admission costs $9 for adults and $6 for youth and non-USU students. USU students with ID are admitted free. Tickets are available in the TSC Ticket Office.
-mattgo@cc.usu.edu