Hay Fever (play)

Hay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. A cross between high farce and a comedy of manners, the play is set in an English country house in the 1920s, and deals with the four eccentric members of the Bliss family and their outlandish behaviour when they each invite a guest to spend the weekend. The self-centred behaviour of the hosts finally drives their guests to flee while the Blisses are so engaged in a family row that they do not notice their guests' furtive departure.[1]

Marie Tempest as Judith with Robert Andrews and Helen Spencer as her children, 1925

Some writers have seen elements of Mrs Astley Cooper[2] and her set in the characters of the Bliss family.[3] Coward said that the actress Laurette Taylor was the main model.[4] Coward introduces one of his signature theatrical devices at the end of the play, where the four guests tiptoe out as the curtain falls, leaving disorder behind them – a device that he also used in various forms in Present Laughter, Private Lives and Blithe Spirit.

Background

In 1921, Coward first visited New York City, hoping that American producers would embrace his plays. During that summer, he befriended the playwright Hartley Manners and his wife, the eccentric actress Laurette Taylor. Their "over-the-top theatrical lifestyle" later inspired him in writing Hay Fever.[5]

Coward wrote the play in three days in 1924, intending the lead role of Judith Bliss for the actress Marie Tempest, "whom I revered and adored".[6] Though she found it amusing, she thought it not substantial enough for a whole evening, but changed her mind after the success of Coward's The Vortex later in 1924.

Original productions

Hay Fever opened at the Ambassadors Theatre on 8 June 1925, directed by Coward, and transferred to the larger Criterion Theatre on 7 September 1925; it ran for 337 performances.[7][8] Coward remembered in 1964 that the notices "were amiable and well-disposed although far from effusive. It was noted, as indeed it has been today, that the play had no plot and that there were few if any 'witty' lines."[9] It opened the same year at the Maxine Elliott Theatre in New York, where it ran for 49 performances.

The original casts in London and New York were as follows:

Plot

The action is set in the Hall of David Bliss's house at Cookham, Berkshire, by the River Thames.

Act I
A Saturday afternoon in June

Sorel and Simon Bliss, a brother and sister, exchange artistic and bohemian dialogue. Judith, their mother, displays the absent-minded theatricality of a retired star actress, and David, their father, a novelist, is concentrating on finishing his latest book. Each of the four members of the Bliss family, without consulting the others, has invited a guest for the weekend. Judith announces that she has decided to return to the stage in one of her old hits, Love's Whirlwind. She and Sorel and Simon amuse themselves acting out a melodramatic passage from the play beginning, "Is this a game?" "Yes, and a game that must be played to the finish!" They are interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell.

Clara, Judith's former dresser and now her housekeeper, opens the door to the first of the four guests, Sandy Tyrell, a sporty fan of Judith's. The next arrival is the vampish Myra Arundel, whom Simon has invited. The other two guests arrive together: Richard Greatham, a diplomat, and Jackie Coryton, a brainless but good-hearted young flapper. Tea is served. Conversation is stilted and eventually grinds to a halt. The scene ends in total and awkward silence.

Act II
After dinner that night

The family insists that everyone should join in a parlour game, a variety of charades in which one person must guess the adverb being acted out by the others. The Blisses are in their element, but the guests flounder and the game breaks up. Simon and Jackie exit to the garden, Sorel drags Sandy into the library, and David takes Myra outside.

Left alone with Richard, Judith flirts with him, and when he chastely kisses her she theatrically over-reacts as though they were conducting a serious affair. She nonplusses Richard by talking of breaking the news to David. She in turn is nonplussed to discover Sandy and Sorel kissing in the library. That too has been mere flirtation, but both Judith and Sorel enjoy themselves by exaggerating it. Judith gives a performance nobly renouncing her claim on Sandy, and exits. Sorel explains to Sandy that she was just playing the theatrical game for Judith's benefit, as "one always plays up to Mother in this house; it's a sort of unwritten law." They leave.

David and Myra enter. They too indulge in a little light flirtation, at the height of which Judith enters and finds them kissing. She makes a theatrical scene, with which David dutifully plays along. Simon rushes in violently, announcing that he and Jackie are engaged. Sorel and Sandy enter from the library, Judith goes into yet another bout of over-theatrical emoting. In the ensuing uproar, Richard asks "Is this a game?" Judith, Sorel and Simon seize on this cue from Love's Whirlwind and trot out the melodramatic dialogue as they had in Act I. David is overcome with laughter and the uncomprehending guests are dazed and aghast as Judith ends the scene by falling to the floor as if in a faint.

Act III
The next morning

A breakfast table has been laid in the hall. Sandy enters and begins eating nervously. At the sound of someone approaching he escapes into the library. Jackie enters, helps herself to some breakfast and bursts into tears. Sandy comes out and they discuss how uncomfortable they were the night before and how mad the Bliss family are. When they hear people approaching, they both retreat to the library. Myra and Richard now enter and begin breakfast. Their conversation mirrors that of Sandy and Jackie, who emerge from the library to join them. All four decide that they are going to return to London without delay. Sandy agrees to drive them in his motor car. They go upstairs to collect their things.

Judith comes down, asks Clara for the Sunday papers and begins reading aloud what the gossip columns say about her. The rest of her family enter. David proposes to read them the final chapter of his novel. Immediately, a minor detail about the geography of Paris is blown into a full-scale family row, with everyone talking at once about whether the Rue Saint-Honoré does or does not connect with the Place de la Concorde and hurling insults at each other. They are so wrapped up in their private row that they do not notice when the four visitors tiptoe down the stairs and out of the house. The Blisses are only momentarily distracted when the slam of the door alerts them to the flight of their guests. Judith comments, "How very rude!" and David adds, "People really do behave in the most extraordinary manner these days." Then, with no further thought of their four tormented guests, they happily return to David's manuscript and to what passes for their normal family life.

Revivals

Hay Fever has been revived numerous times around the world. The first London revival was in 1933 at the Shaftesbury Theatre with Constance Collier as Judith.[10] Constance Collier played Judith in a 1931 revival at Avon Theatre in New York.[11]

A 1964 National Theatre Company production of Hay Fever at the Old Vic, starring Edith Evans and Maggie Smith with Coward directing, was part of the revival of interest in his work toward the end of his life. The rest of the cast included Derek Jacobi as Simon, Barbara Hicks as Clara, Anthony Nicholls as David, Robert Stephens as Sandy, Robert Lang as Richard, and Lynn Redgrave as Jackie. When invited to direct the production, Coward wrote, "I am thrilled and flattered and frankly a little flabbergasted that the National Theatre should have had the curious perceptiveness to choose a very early play of mine and to give it a cast that could play the Albanian telephone directory."[12]

In a 1970 revival at the Helen Hayes Theatre, the cast included Roberta Maxwell as Sorel, Sam Waterston as Simon, Sudie Bond as Clara, Shirley Booth as Judith, John Williams as David, John Tillinger as Sandy, Marian Mercer as Myra, and Carole Shelley as Jackie.[13]

2015 student production of Hay Fever at University of Arkansas Theatre

A revival at London's Queen's Theatre in 1983–1984 included Rosalyn Landor as Sorel, Elizabeth Bradley as Clara, Penelope Keith as Judith, Moray Watson as David, Donald Pickering as Richard, Abigail McKern as Jackie.[14] A 1985 production at the Music Box Theatre in New York had a cast including Mia Dillon as Sorel, Robert Joy as Simon, Barbara Bryne as Clara, Rosemary Harris as Judith, Roy Dotrice as David, Campbell Scott as Sandy, Carolyn Seymour as Myra, Charles Kimbrough as Richard, and Deborah Rush.[15]

The 1992 revival cast at London's Albery Theatre included Abigail Cruttenden as Sorel, Maria Charles as Clara, Maria Aitken as Judith, John Standing as David, Carmen du Sautoy as Myra, Christopher Godwin as Richard, and Sara Crowe as Jackie.[16] The 1999 Savoy Theatre cast included Monica Dolan as Sorel, Stephen Mangan as Simon, Geraldine McEwan as Judith, Peter Blythe as David, Sylvestra Le Touzel as Myra, Malcolm Sinclair as Richard, and Cathryn Bradshaw as Jackie.[16] The 2006 Haymarket Theatre casts included Kim Medcalf as Sorel, Dan Stevens as Simon, Judi Dench as Judith, Peter Bowles as David, Charles Edwards as Sandy, and Belinda Lang as Myra.[17][18] The following UK tour, in 2007, cast Stephanie Beacham as Judith, Christopher Timothy as David, Christopher Naylor as Sandy, and Andrew Hall as Richard.[19]

A 2012 revival at the Noël Coward Theatre included in the cast Lindsay Duncan as Judith, Jeremy Northam as Richard, Kevin McNally as David, Olivia Colman as Myra, Sam Callis as Sandy, Freddie Fox as Simon, Amy Morgan as Jackie, Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Sorrel, and Jenny Galloway as Clara.[20][21] 2014 revivals included one at the Stratford Festival, in Canada, with Lucy Peacock as Judith, Cynthia Dale as Myra, and Tyrone Savage as Sandy;[22] and a UK tour with Felicity Kendal as Judith, Simon Shepherd as David, Sara Stewart as Myra, Celeste Dodwell as Jackie, and Alice Orr-Ewing as Sorrel.[23]

Television versions

A UK television production in 1960 in ITV's Play of the Week series featured Edith Evans as Judith Bliss and Maggie Smith as Jackie Coryton. This version is not known to have survived.[24] The Times reviewed this broadcast, calling Hay Fever "Mr Noel Coward's best play... one of the most perfectly engineered comedies of the century."[25]

Other members of the television cast were Pamela Brown, George Devine, Paul Eddington and Richard Wattis. The two leads, Evans and Smith, later played in the stage production of Hay Fever under the author's direction in the National Theatre Company's revival in 1964 with Smith switching from the ingénue role of Jackie to that of the vampish Myra.[26]

A further, also now lost, production in the BBC's Play of the Month series was transmitted in 1968.[27] This featured Lucy Fleming as Sorel, Ian McKellen as Simon, Celia Johnson as Judith, Dennis Price as David, Richard Briers as Sandy, Anna Massey as Myra, Charles Gray as Richard, and Vickery Turner as Jackie.[28]

The BBC recorded another television production which was first shown in the UK during Christmas 1984. This version stars Penelope Keith as Judith, Paul Eddington (this time as David), Patricia Hodge as Myra, Michael Siberry as Simon, Phoebe Nicholls as Sorel and Benjamin Whitrow as Richard.[29]

Notes
  1. "Theater Reviews". NYTimes.com. 18 August 2017.
  2. Evangeline Julia Marshall, eccentric society hostess (1854–1944), married Clement Paston Astley Cooper, grandson of Sir Astley Paston Cooper, on 10 July 1877. She inherited Hambleton Hall from her brother Walter Marshall on his death in 1899, and there she entertained rising talents in the artistic world, including the painter Philip Streatfeild, the conductor Malcolm Sargent and the writer Charles Scott Moncrieff, as well as the young Coward. See Guardian, 19 April 2006 and Victorian Hotel History
  3. Hoare, Philip. "Coward, Sir Noël Peirce (1899–1973)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, January 2008, accessed 30 December 2008
  4. Coward (Present Indicative), p. 126
  5. Kenrick, John. "Noel Coward – Biographical Sketch", Coward 101 at Musicals 101: The Cyber Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre, TV and Film, 2000, accessed on 9 March 2009
  6. Coward, p. vii
  7. Gaye, p. 1554
  8. Coward, p. viii
  9. Coward, pp. viii and ix
  10. Coward unnumbered introductory page
  11. League, The Broadway. "Hay Fever – Broadway Play – 1931 Revival - IBDB". www.ibdb.com.
  12. Morley, p. 369
  13. League, The Broadway. "Hay Fever – Broadway Play – 1970 Revival - IBDB". www.ibdb.com.
  14. "Production of Hay Fever - Theatricalia". theatricalia.com.
  15. League, The Broadway. "Hay Fever – Broadway Play – 1985 Revival - IBDB". www.ibdb.com.
  16. "Hay Fever - London theatre tickets and information for the comedy starring Felicity Kendal up to 1 August 2015". www.thisistheatre.com.
  17. Billington, Michael (21 April 2006). "Hay Fever, Theatre Royal, Haymarket". the Guardian.
  18. Benedict, David (25 April 2006). "Hay Fever". variety.com.
  19. "Beacham hits Fever pitch". Birmingham Post. 29 March 2007.
  20. "Noël Coward, Gloriously Revived". International Herald Tribune. 7 March 2012 – via The New York Times.
  21. "Production of Hay Fever - Theatricalia". theatricalia.com.
  22. "Noel Coward's HAY FEVER Begins Previews at Stratford Festival". BroadwayWorld.com.
  23. Billington, Michael (27 August 2014). "Hay Fever review – hysteria rules as Felicity Kendal does Coward". the Guardian.
  24. "Missing episode in programme Play of the Week", lostshows.com
  25. The Times, 25 May 1960, p.6.
  26. "The history of Hay Fever". The Independent. 30 March 2006.
  27. "Missing episode in programme Play of the Month", lostshows.com
  28. "Play of the Month: Hay Fever", tv.com
  29. "Hay Fever (1984)". BFI.

References
  • Castle, Charles. Noël, W. H. Allen, London, 1972. ISBN 0-491-00534-2
  • Coward, Noël. Hay Fever. Heinemann, London, 1964. ISBN 0-435-20196-4
  • Coward, Noël. Present Indicative. Autobiography to 1931. Heinemann 1937. Methuen reissue, 2004 ISBN 978-0-413-77413-2
  • Lahr, John. Coward the Playwright, Methuen, London, 1982. ISBN 0-413-48050-X
  • Mander, Raymond and Joe Mitchenson. Theatrical Companion to Coward. Updated by Barry Day and Sheridan Morley. Oberon 2000. ISBN 1-84002-054-7
  • Morley, Sheridan. A Talent to Amuse. Heinemann 1969/Penguin Books, London, 1974. ISBN 0-14-003863-9
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