‘Fever’ Is Above Normal

“Hay Fever,” now in a revival at the Vanguard Theatre, is about a weekend at the country home of a supposedly retired famous actress and the shenanigans that ensue when supposedly infatuated outsiders enter the maelstrom of game-playing in which the actress’ family revels.

Noel Coward based his comedy on evenings he had spent as a penniless unknown at the home of Laurette Taylor, the actress who crowned her career creating the role of Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.” She was an icon before that, along with her husband, Hartley Manners, a writer and director of note.

Coward meant the play as a compliment to Taylor, who didn’t take the joke with any more grace than the guests at the Bliss household in the play. The Taylor-Manners family was theatrical, and the emotional games put guests very much out of joint.

Director James Cude has almost everything right in this production. His timing is exquisite, the interior rhythms of the scenes work beautifully, and his balance in the relationships of the characters is impeccable.

What he hasn’t realized is that they are a family of actors. Their games are light, glib and frothy, even at their most vindictive. Coward’s own family bickered, and he was fond of the sport. Cude makes the mistake of treating the arguments too seriously, and too often the Bliss family looks very much like Eugene O’Neill’s family in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” O’Neill was serious. Coward was flippant, and it’s surprising that these actors and this director didn’t recognize the delicate quality of the verbal jousting.

Heavyweight moments mean fewer laughs. One of the biggest in “Hay Fever” usually occurs on Myra’s line “This haddock’s disgusting,” during a panicky, rushed breakfast in the third act. In this production, it’s greeted with silence.

The actors are otherwise faultless, reveling in the bright, crisp tempos of Coward’s writing. Matt Schleicher is a deliciously blase Simon, Meghan Beghtol a humorously sharp Sorel Bliss. Brenda Parks is a bit grand and dour for the mother, Judith Bliss, but has moments that echo the actress unable to give up the grand pretense of the stage. Christopher Shortell, as Judith’s “young man,” is hilariously opaque, and Marcia Bonnitz and Cheryl Etzel are very sharp as bright, young English flappers momentarily attracted to the Bliss image.

BE THERE

“Hay Fever,” Vanguard Theatre, 699A S. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Today-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. Ends Nov. 8. $13-$15. (714) 526-8007. Running time: 2 hours.