South Bend Tribune
October 12, 2002

'Hay Fever' a delightful comedy
REVIEW

By JULIE YORK COPPENS

Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- It takes a good actor to act badly -- and the acting here ranks among the worst I've ever seen. How delightful.
The student cast of "Hay Fever," now playing at Indiana University South Bend, throws itself into the theatrical excesses of this 1920s comedy with an abandonment I think even the playwright, Noel Coward, would admire. As the four members of the Bohemian Bliss family, their unhinged maid and the four unfortunate guests who suffer the Blisses' bizarre hospitality for half a weekend in the country, these young actors show a self-possession beyond their years, hamming it up in high style.
Director Isaac Walters and his company understand that although the Blisses themselves -- mother Judith, an aging grande dame of the theater; father David, a grandly reclusive novelist; and their not-exactly dutiful grown children, Sorel and Simon -- are the "actors" in this domestic farce, everyone, even the dull flapper who refuses to take part in a theatrical parlor game, is playing a role here. (A hint: Another supporting character, an aspiring diplomat who unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of a torrid love scene, is named "Greatham.") The guests' perfectly proper indignation at being alternately offended, seduced and ignored by their hosts is in itself an act, and the actors here perform it with vigor.
Walters exhibits an instinct for drama at least equal to that of the play's eccentric inhabitants. We get a sense of it early, when Andrew Y. Moore, as David, stands at the top of the stairs and announces that the guest he's invited down for the weekend "can sleep in the Japanese room." Slowly, very slowly, the heads of the three other Blisses -- who've just declared in turn their own plans to lodge their own last-minute guests in said Japanese room -- turn back around until we can see the actors' appalled faces. Another hilarious episode is built almost entirely on synchronized tea-sipping.
This is not rocket science, just good, solid directing, and "Hay Fever" is full of it. Aside from one or two poorly timed entrances (Cecily Janz, otherwise divine as Judith, makes her first queenly appearance while someone else is still speaking), and an amusing dance break from Antonia N. Baldoni's maid that goes on a bit too long, Walters' staging zips along with nary a stumble.
The production isn't perfect: The accents are a muddle, as are the not-quite-period costumes (Judith's Turkish pajamas are a hoot, but did I actually see Simon wearing a short-sleeved oxford shirt?), and Robert Moore's lighting gives the house's rosy interior a nostalgic glow while leaving the outdoors strangely black. (That exotically dressed interior, by the way, equipped with plenty of "stages" from which the family can emote, represents an impressive achievement for student designer Jacqueline Seals.)
And the play itself is, even by Coward standards, a trifle -- at least as performed here. I think it's possible to find in "Hay Fever" some deeper message about narcissism, hypocrisy (at least the Blisses are upfront with theirs, the author seems to say) and the meaning of family. The IUSB production is more simply a celebration of laughter, life and above all, acting.