Hay Fever (Methuen Modern Plays)

Rating:
Summary: Hay Fever
Review: I was not aware that this was a live stage play. It was hard to follow on the audio tape. This was not really a 'story' being told. You really had to visualize who the characters were and what they were doing. This is not good for an audio book content.
I am an avid audio book listener.

Rating:
Summary: Noel Coward's First Great Comic Success
Review: Noel Coward (1899-1973) is best recalled for his sparkling yet acid-etched comedies, and the 1925 HAY FEVER is among the best, easily ranking alongside such titles as BLITHE SPIRIT, DESIGN FOR LIVING, and PRIVATE LIVES. Among his earlier successes, Coward received inspiration for the play when he visited the home of the great American actress Laurelette Taylor--and found both her and her family shockingly eccentric in an unexpectedly theatrical way.

Unlike most other Coward scripts, HAY FEVER relies less on plot and Coward's talent for sharp wit than it does upon character. Judith, directly based on Laurelette Taylor, is the lynchpin of the piece: recently retired from the stage, she is an intensely theatrical woman who enjoys dramatizing her life. She has invited a much younger man to be a weekend guest, never dreaming that her husband David, son Simon, and daughter Sorrel have each invited a guest as well.

The four guests soon discover that the maid is down with a toothache, there aren't enough rooms, and there is scarcely enough food to go around. To make matters worse, Judith plays every scene that presents itself. It is a habit in which she is not alone; her novelist husband and their two children are every bit as adept at theatrical hysteria as she, and before the weekend concludes the guests are treated to astonshing exhibitions that alternately annoy, confuse, and frighten them out of their wits.

Plays are written to be performed, not read, and HAY FEVER is a good example of the difficulties that can arise when a non-theatre person tries to visualize how it would be on the stage. On the page, it reads as clever and amusing, but only mildly so; on the stage, however, it is easily one of the most hilarious comedies of the 20th Century. Recommended for those who have the imagination required!

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Hit cast, hit comedy.
Review: Noel Coward delights again with this hilarious partner-swapping comedy. The performers joyfully embrace the material as Coward explores the wonderness and the pitfalls of love and desire.