THEATER REVIEW : ‘Hay Fever’ Nothing to Sneeze At

All too often, plays that make theater life their subject run the risk of sounding impossibly smug, precious and self-referential. For even the most high-minded playwrights, the temptation to put in- jokes ahead of in sight can be hard to resist.

Among the many remarkable things about Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever” is that, at age 23, the author not only recognized this pitfall but gamely elected to incorporate it into his frothy comedy about an eccentric family having outrageous fun with strait-laced weekend guests at their English country house.

The family matriarch, actress Judith Bliss, and her brood are above all else obsessed with posturing in self-created scenes of inflated drama--and that’s precisely Coward’s point.

In his staging for the Ensemble Theatre Company’s elegant revival, director Walter Schoen clearly understands this fundamental conceit. Coward’s potshots at the foibles of people living as if they were always on stage are well handled by a talented cast in a handsome setting, though the production tends to take its comedy a little too seriously from time to time.

But Gretchen Evans as Judith and Charles Ballinger as her writer-husband, David, are sheer delight as they taunt each other in an elaborate one-upmanship to see who can better thumb his nose at conventional propriety.

To that end, Judith has invited an infatuated young professional boxer (S. Roland Frantz) to the house without clearing up his mistaken notion that she’s an available widow. “No, he’s not dead,” she deadpans at his shocked reaction to a casual mention of her husband. “He’s upstairs.”

To further complicate the picture, each of the other family members has also brought home someone special for the weekend. David, in a prior momentary dalliance with a clueless flapper (Delta Rae Giordano), had extended an invitation that he’d promptly forgotten, but she’s taken him up on it (to his visible annoyance).

Daughter Sorel (Brooke Fulton) has rolled out the red carpet for the fussy diplomat (Christopher Vore) she currently fancies, while her brother, Simon (Gabriel Lockwood), has his sights on a posh social butterfly (Alison Coutts). Margaret Nesbitt adds a note of comic exasperation as the grumpy, put-upon housekeeper.

The small country house (gorgeously recreated on the even smaller Ensemble stage by set designer Robert Grande-Weiss) makes for extremely cramped accommodations and unintended close encounters. Soon enough, Coward’s dazzling plot finds each guest paired with someone other than his or her original match.

On occasion, the generally light and agreeable tone bogs down in a zealous determination to wrest every pearl from Coward’s witty dialogue, and some settling-in missteps were still evident on opening night.

But the show’s fun spirit is infectious, and none of these limitations are serious enough make anyone allergic to “Hay Fever.”

Details

* WHAT: “Hay Fever.”

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday (through Aug. 13).

* WHERE: Alhecama Theatre, 914 Santa Barbara St., Santa Barbara.

* HOW MUCH: $15-$20.

* CALL: 962-8606.