No Sneezes

IN A GENTEE1L CORNER of upper-class England in the 1920's the symptoms of ordinary Spring Fever erupt into a full blown case of Hayfever, Noel Coward's comic nightmare of what happens when English society goes native for the weekend. It might be called a comedy of manners. Bad manners.

The setting is the country home of the Bliss family, a clearly ironic name. Each member of this ill-mannered, artistic bohemian brood had invited a personal guest to the house for the weekend to be wined, dined and seduced. When it becomes apparent that the family's guests will all be staying on the same weekend, the family devises a unique method of dealing with the overcrowding.

Katey Leff plays the mother, Judith Bliss. A former actress, Judith has never forgotten her glory years on the stage, nor will she let anyone else forget. An actress has to have skill to portray bad acting well. Whether or not this is strictly true in this case, Leff does a marvelous job of being overdramatic in her every motions and word, flailing her arms in dramatic poses and pouring out emotion over trivialities.

One would expect that the children of such a mother would be a bit odd, and they are. Two narcissists that resemble Adams House stereotypes play co-stars in their mother's little melodramas. Philip Resnik is the very portrait of the artist as a young snob, but Laurence Bouvard's irritatingly Shakespearean accent detracts from an otherwise solid performance.

John Nicolson slides naturally into the role of the artist at work, because he has ripped off the mannerisms of several members of A-World cafe society. As the father of the Bliss family, he is quietly and yet severely perturbed by any distractions in his work." He puts the least stress on Anglicizing his speech, despite an ethnic advantage; the rest of the cast ought to have followed his example.

The four romantic-lambs-for-slaughter are all quite bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Unfortunately, their acting is not exceptional, which may be due to a directorial compression of their characters into one comic dimension. Susan Kelly is the lucky exception, however. As Myra Arundel she is as catty as a tabby from Wellesley.

David Wingrove adeptly integrates the comic play within the Bliss family with the comic play on the stage; but then again, Hayfever is a play that could almost direct itself. There were only a few times when the actors made unnatural motions while falling into theatrical tableaus.

At times Wingrove does allow things to get stuffy in an unfunny way. The rahther heavy English accents and the constant over-acting are initially acceptable, but as the play wears on the over-acting wears thin and the over-Oxbridge intonations make Coward's dry witticisms positively and Coward's eternally fresh wit is enough to sustain interest, but one almost wishes a kid from Brooklyn would wander in for a change of pace. Something more in the way of contrast is needed; Lisa Peers, as the straightforward cockney maid, comes close to fitting the bill.

It's a pity that Hugh Taylor, Arthur Rotch, and Kent Smith couldn't come up with a better design for living for the Lowell JCR.

But even with all the theatrical allergens irritating the audience's dramatic noses. Hayfever is nothing to be sneezed at. -T.M. Doyle