A weekend in the country has rarely proven as delightfully, deliciously madcap as the one L.A. theatergoers can now spend with the ever so eccentric Bliss family in South Pasadena Theatre Workshop’s ever so effervescent revival of Noël Coward’s 1924 comedic gem Hay Fever.

Were this a weekend like any other, it would simply be bestselling novelist David (Clay Wilcox), his retired stage star wife Judith (Sally Smythe), and their 20something offspring Simon (Sam Cass) and Sorel (Madeline Godwin) whiling away the hours in their English country home on the River Thames.

But this is not a weekend like any other since, unbeknownst to each other, all four Blisses have invited a guest to spend it with at the family manse.

Judith has invited devoted fan Sandy Tyrell (Kila Packett), a much younger boxer who has recently caught the stage goddess’s eye, while David’s guest is Jackie Coryton (Fiona Rose Dyer), alternately described as “a perfectly sweet flapper” and “an abject fool.”

Simon’s guest of choice is Myra Arundel (Erin Coker), a “self-conscious vampire” who “goes about using sex as a shrimping net,” his sister having set her sights on Richard Greatham (Andrew Tippie), a “frightfully well-known diplomatist” who may well be the only sane one of the bunch.

Let the hijinks begin.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably seen at least one production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives (I’ve seen at least four) and/or Blithe Spirit (I’ve seen that one twice), but Hay Fever will likely be new to you, and at the risk of alienating fans of his two more frequently produced comedies, I think I like Hay Fever best.

Even without their guests, the four unconventional Blisses would probably already be enough to keep an audience entertained.

David, who’s written such popular potboilers as The Sinful Woman and Broken Reeds, could easily give Disney’s Absentminded Professor a run for his money, while his glamorous, narcissistic wife Judith, star of such romantic stage chestnuts as Love’s Whirlwind and The Bold Deceiver, is never not performing a role, even in her own home.

As for the kids, devil-may-care Simon may have reached his mid-twenties or thereabouts, but you’d hardly know it from his gleefully unrestrained antics, and Sorel, while recognizing how “awfully bad-mannered” the Blisses are, is at heart every bit as unconventional as her parents and brother.

Still, Hay Fever wouldn’t be nearly as much fun minus the weekend’s “guest stars,” and if each Bliss family members has initially set his or her eye on their own invited guest, just wait until Noël Coward shakes things up to uproarious effect in Act Two.

Director Sydney Walsh brings out the screwball best from an absolutely terrific cast, whether they’re delivering the sophisticated patter which Coward is so adept at, or engaging in physical comedy to hilarious effect.

Wilcox is a hoot as the self-absorbed, mercurial David opposite Smythe’s simply divine Judith while Cass plays Simon with irresistible abandon and Godwin’s Sorel is as winningly winsome as ingenues get.

As for the guests, Packett plays boxing enthusiast Sandy with abundant zest, Coker vamps up a storm as the glamorous, statuesque Myra, Dyer is a ditzy, dimwitted delight as Jackie, and proving that less is more, Tippie’s Richard steals every scene he’s in as the buttoned-down, fish-out-of-water Richard.

Last but not least, Nicola Bertram’s maid Clara does more with a disapproving look than many actors could do with several hundred lines.

Doubling as scenic designer, Wilcox gives Hay Fever precisely the comfortable but cluttered domicile the Blisses would call home, and it has been expertly lit by Leigh Allen as have Yuanyuan Liang’s elegant 1920s costumes, and Nick Foran provides not just the play’s required sound effects but musical ditties that situate us smack dab in the middle of the Roaring 20s.

Hay Fever is produced by Stephen Goodwin and Smythe. Samantha Burkett is stage manager and Zane Burrows is assistant stage manager. Austin Hall and Kelly Pearson are understudies.

Written over the course of just three days when Noël Coward was a mere twenty-four years of age, Hay Fever remains as delectably entertaining in 2024 as it was a century ago. Check out South Pasadena Theatre Workshop’s bubbly revival and you’ll see precisely what I mean.

South Pasadena Theatre Workshop, 1507 El Centro St, South Pasadena.
www.SouthPasadenaTheatreWorkshop.com

–Steven Stanley
June 16, 2024

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Noël Coward, South Pasadena Theatre Workshop