Hay Fever

Director Imara Savage has given Hay Fever all the panache that was Noël Coward. Fast and witty, colourful and provocative, it is the kind of production ‘The Master’ would relish were he alive today.

She describes the play as “a comedy of comparisons and contrasts … (and) a celebration of the bohemian off-piste artists he knew and admired” – and her astute and imaginative direction superimposes contemporary staging and creative thinking onto the ultra avant garde 1920s bohemian ‘set’ on whom Coward based his characters.

The whole production has a vitality and immediacy that is far different from the usual stuffy, period-piece interpretations of Coward’s work. Gold curtains shimmer across the stage and open on designer Alicia Clements’ beautifully eccentric conservatory dominated by a bathtub from which Tom Conroy (delightfully dirty and semi-naked) and Harriet Dyer (similarly under-clad), introduce the play. As brother and sister Simon and Sorrel Bliss, they are spoilt and laconically self indulgent, but their underlying lethargy, sparked by the witty repartee of the idle rich, projects the current of agitated unrest that sets the scene for a “country weekend’ that goes wackily awry.

Into the bizarre scene, thus created, sweeps swirling house-coat clad Heather Mitchell as Judith, their retired actress mother. Mitchell obviously relishes all the exciting inconsistency of this mercurial character. She is erratic, charming, fickle, flighty, wild – but never does she go so far as to make the character’s volatility implausible. It is a truly outstanding performance that matches every nuance of Coward’s character with Savage’s ingenious vision of her.

David Bliss, her novelist husband, is played with ponderous dourness by Tony Llewellyn-Jones. The contrast of characters is beautifully effective and Llewellyn-Jones pulls his character far enough back to make Bliss, too, just a bit odd.

Genevieve Lemon is their over-worked and sloppily sassy housekeeper, Clara. Lemon finds every possible comic moment in roles such as these, emphasisng the difference in class with sly asides and knowing expressions. 

Then there are the guests, separately invited by each member of the family – and completely unsuspecting of the mayhem that the weekend will bring.

Josh McConville plays Judith’s infatuated and very gauche admirer, Sandy Tyrell. McConville makes the very most of every role in which he is cast, and this is no exception. His awkwardness and incredulous reactions to the outlandish behaviour around him adds a special dimension to the comedy.

Helen Thomson is the fashionably sophisticated Myra Arundel, invited by Simon, but obviously well outside his league. Thomson, as usual, finds every comedic moment of this character, mixing elegant movement with perfect timing, telling expressions and a voguish drawl.

Sorel’s guest is Richard Greatham, a diplomat who is definitely out of his usual depth in the Bliss environment. Alan Dukes plays this starchy character with diligent aplomb – and bewildered dubiousness. Dressed in a three-piece suit and tie, he tries diligently to say and do the right thing in increasingly un-diplomatic situations.

David Bliss has invited (for some undisclosed reason) a young woman called Jackie Coryton, who is completely non-plussed by everything – the house, the people and their antics. Briallen Clarke finds all of this in wide-eyed disbelief and increasingly anxious discomposure and unease.

Only someone who, like Coward, was part of the outrageous non-conformism and tempo of the ‘arty’ set in London and New York in the 1920s could create the chaos that ensues. Only a director like Savage could make it so believably contemporary. With Clements’ almost erotic set and signature costumes and Trent Suidgeest’s suggestive lighting, Savage has created a production that brings Coward dynamically and uproariously into the twenty-first century.

Carol Wimmer

Images (from top): Heather Mitchell and Josh McConville; Heather Mitchell, Briallen Clarke, Tom Conroy and Harriet Dyer; Tom Conroy and Helen Thomson; Briallen Clarke, Heather Mitchell, Alan Dukes and Josh McConville in Sydney Theatre Company’s Hay Fever. © Lisa Tomasetti