Bring the tissue
— Utah State Theatre presents "Hay Fever!"
By Jeremy Gordon
LOGAN — "Hay Fever,"
Noel Coward’s comedic tale of a family wrought
with self-absorption and self-induced drama comes to
the Morgan Theatre stage on the Utah State University
campus Dec. 2-4 and 8-11. Utah State Theatre presents
the tale at 7:30 p.m. nightly. Ticket information for
the comedy is available at the Smith Spectrum Ticket
Office, (435) 797-3036 or on the Web at www.usu.edu/theatre.
Noel Coward’s "Hay Fever"
is a comedy of bad manners that starts with the arrival
of four guests invited independently by different members
of the Bliss family for a weekend at their country house.
The guests are alternately amused, ignored, humiliated
and ultimately abandoned to slink away by themselves
during a blazing family row.
The Bliss family is artistic, arrogant
and eccentric. David Bliss is a writer of bad novels,
and his wife, Judith, an actress recently retired from
the stage, lives life as though still performing in
a badly written melodrama. Son Simon is a cartoonist
and daughter Sorrel is ostensibly trying to escape her
heritage of rudely anti-social behavior. When the weekend
guests arrive, the bizarre household is exposed in all
its glory and hypocrisy. The play concerns the way the
guests are alternately amused, ignored and humiliated
by a family rather more concerned with playing out its
own fantasies than attending to the comfort of their
guests.
Directing the UST production is Adrianne
Moore, faculty member at Utah State. According to the
director, the piece should bring out some laughter during
the holiday season.
"I feel sure it will delight
audiences," Moore said. "It’s gorgeous
to look at and hysterically funny, utilizing a verbal
wit not common in contemporary plays. Although illustrative
of the manners and preoccupations of the time, the humor
has a very modern sensibility to it."
Moore said that according to Coward’s
autobiography, the idea for the play came from a weekend
he spent with the Broadway star Laurette Taylor in 1921.
In the biography Coward writes, "On
Sunday evenings we had cold supper and played games,
often rather acrimonious games, owing to Laurette’s
abrupt disapproval of any guest who turned out to be
self-conscious, nervous or unable to act an adverb or
an historical personage with proper abandon."
Taylor denied any resemblance to her family upon seeing
the show with the comment, "None of us is ever
unintentionally rude.’"
The cast of "Hay Fever"
consists entirely of Utah State Theatre performers.
Judith Bliss, the dramatic leader of the house, is portrayed
by Katie Ackerman with Jon McBride as David Bliss, the
husband and unskilled writer. Mike Gardner plays Simon
Bliss, the cartoonist, and Lindsay Boucher, as Sorell
Bliss, is the family’s eccentric daughter. The
Bliss household employs a maid (naturally one with her
own ideas), Clara, who is played by Kajsa Nelson.
Richard Greatham (invited by Judith)
is Jed Broberg, Sandy Tyrell (invited by Sorell) is
Richie Call, Myra Arundel (invited by Simon) is Lori
Wilkenson and Jackie Coryton (invited by David) is Lacey
Jackson.
"The play is a wonderful example
of a comedy of manners (in this case bad manners) from
the roaring twenties," said Moore. "It’s
extremely well written, one of Noel Coward’s finest
works, and you always want students to work with first-rate
material. It provides an opportunity for acting students
to explore working with the particular heightened acting
style that this play demands. They need to internalize
the manners and speech patterns of this giddy period
between the wars."
Ticket prices for the production of
"Hay Fever" range from $6 to $9. For general
inquiries, call (435) 797-1500 or email gordonj@hass.usu.edu.
Please, no children under the age of 6.
Utah State Theatre’s 2005 spring
schedule is also available. "Jacques Brel,"
the musical production, runs Feb. 24-28 and March 2-5.
The popular "One-Act Plays" take place March
23-26. The final production of the year is Shakespeare’s
"Comedy of Errors," which runs April 14-16
and 20-23. Call or email for information.
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