The Peterborough Players’ season finale, Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever,” is the perfect show to wrap up a delightful first season with Artistic Director Brendon Fox and a splendid night out with a message that resonates through for the ages.
“Hay Fever”” is the second show at the Players directed by Fox, who noted that the play is “just a little older than the Peterborough Players.”
Written 101 years ago, “Hay Fever,” sometimes called “a comedy of bad manners, ” is every bit as relevant today as it was in 1924, spoofing the self-absorption of the highly dramatic Bliss family. Fox said of the play, “‘Hay Fever’ reminds us that being present is the best gift we can give each other.”
When each member of Bliss family—daughter Sorel, son Simon, mother Judith and father David— invites a guest to their country home for the weekend without telling anyone else, or informing the overworked housekeeper, Clara, hilarity ensues.
When Clara informs the family that her assistant, the scullery maid, is “writhing on the floor” in agony from a toothache, the Bliss family does not react at all, instead telling Clara to ready four guest rooms and plan on cooking for eight people for the next six meals.
In a contemporary version of “Hay Fever,” the members of the Bliss family might be staring at their phones while completely ignoring their guests, but since the play is set in the 1920s, they pore over newspapers or books and talk among themselves, leaving their houseguests sitting awkwardly and wondering why they have been invited at all.
According to Christy Keefe, the Players director of marketing and development. “Hay Fever” is one of the most-performed plays at the Peterborough Players.
“We have performed this play four times in 92 years—possibly even more than ‘Our Town,’” Keefe said at Tuesday night’s dress rehearsal. “It’s just a perfect play for this venue, for summer and for this audience.”
Connan Morrissey, who acted in the Players’ last performance of “Hay Fever” in 1995 in the role of Sorel Bliss, now plays the lead role of Judith Bliss, a celebrated actress who is fighting off boredom after her retirement from the stage.
“Back in 1995, this wonderful young ingenue, Connan Morrissey played the role Sorel right here in this barn, so it is really a wonderful, full-circle moment to have her back here playing the lead role of Judith,” Keefe said.
Morrissey is hilarious as Judith, who spends her days at the family’s country home creating real-life drama or suddenly slipping into scenes from her favorite roles on the stage, with Sorel and Simon obligingly jumping into supporting roles — leaving the unsuspecting houseguests left unsure of what is theater and what is real life.
Gabriella Joy Rodriguez is a standout as attention-seeking Sorel, who commandeers her mother’s bewildered guest, Sandy, played by Michael Thanh Tran, for private time in the library. Parker Drown is a gifted physical and comic actor who careens in and out of the scenes as the wildly dramatic Simon, and Meri Stypinski’s Myra attempts to being sanity as the visit spirals out of control.
Players regular Kathy Manfre is wry and wonderful in the role of Clara, the long-suffering housekeeper, who seems to be the only character completely aware of what is going on.
As the weekend progresses, the Bliss family behaves more and more outlandishly, using the unfortunate guests as pawns in their family drama. The guests try to make sense of the turn of events, suffering through a family game of charades and fending off inappropriate advances on all sides. Emily Anne Goes shines as an overwhelmed flapper Jackie, who begs to be excused from the game.
Dwayne Washington is exceptional as diplomat Richard Greatham, an island of sanity and calm in the Bliss madhouse. Rafael Untalan plays self-important novelist David Bliss, who seems to only notice his family’s terrible behavior when it suits him.
Throughout the weekend, the Bliss family remains oblivious to their guests’ discomfort, seemingly unaware of where the “game” ends and begins — until the houseguests decide for themselves.
The costumes created by costume designer Lex Liang are reason enough to see “Hay Fever,” from the tweed traveling suits to the flapper dresses worn by Rodriguez and Goes to the spectacular creations worn by Judith, which nearly steal the show.
“Hay Fever” continues through Aug. 24 at the Peterborough Players at 55 Hadley Road in Peterborough. On Friday night, Aug. 16, Michelle Stahl of the Monadnock Center for History and Culture will present an illustrated program about “Country Life in the Monadnock Region in the 1920s” before the performance.
Tickets and information can be found at peterboroughplayers.org.