Noel Coward's Hay Fever Opens the 2009-2010 Theatrical Season at the Santa Fe Playhouse

For the first time in years, Santa Fe Playhouse is opening its season not with its usual original take on Santa Fe life and times, the Santa Fe Fiesta Melodrama, but with the inspired silliness and faux sophistication of Noel Coward’s first unequivocal hit, Hay Fever (HF).  Directed by local theater veterans and performers Carol and Jim McGiffin (of West End Christmas fame), Hay Fever, according to its author, has “no plot and remarkably little action” (Coward, Play Parade).  So I was intrigued why the husband and wife duo decided to produce and direct a hit 1925 play in Santa Fe in 2009.

In a telephone interview with Jim and Carol McGiffin on August 5, 2009, I had the opportunity to ask them why they chose Coward’s work to open the Playhouse’s season.  According to Carol, both McGiffins were ready to return to theater after a two year hiatus.  They completed a two decade run in John Gooch’s West End Christmas in 2004, and a fifteen year stretch with the “Alamo City Jazz Band,” a traditional Dixieland jazz band out of San Antonio that had been founded in 1964.  Finally, the couple spent eight years mentoring drama students at Monte del Sol Charter School from which their two sons graduated.  Jim acted in last season’s big hit, a revival of the old warhorse Arsenic and Old Lace at the Santa Fe Playhouse, a play he had acted in twice previously in Buffalo (NY) in 1972 and in Santa Fe in 1982.  About once every ten years, the McGiffins decide to direct and so they began asking fellow Santa Fe performers what they’d like to see presented.  Noel Coward’s name continued to be mentioned until the die was cast when Santa Fe arts administrator and theater enthusiast Nadine Stafford, the McGiffins’ boys’ godmother, said, “What about Hay Fever?”  After rereading the play, Jim felt that this was a work that “we could do and would excite other actors.”

HF was originally scheduled to be produced in the Spring of 2010, but when the perennial season opener Santa Fe Fiesta Melodrama was postponed for a year--the McGiffins first met on the day of the 1979 melodrama auditions in which Jim was cast as a villain and Carol as a bar girl--they were asked to open the 2009-2010 Santa Fe Playhouse season.  Agreeing in principle with Coward’s assessment of his play as all about “timing and expert technique” (Play Parade), the McGiffins were a bit nervous about having their six month lead-in reduced to eight weeks.  Jim believes that “timing may not be everything in HF, but is way ahead of what is second.”  Since the play is all about character interaction and interplay, the directors knew that they had to have an intelligent, talented cast to pull off “the hard task of making it look easy.”  Twenty-eight local actors auditioned for the play and the McGiffins “found the talent that walked through the door was amazing.  We could have cast the play at least twice over and had a quality cast.”

The plot of HF, such as it is, is predicated on the Bliss family each inviting a guest to their summer country home unbeknownst to the other family members.  The grown Bliss children reveal the essence of the family and the eighteen hours of lunacy presented on the stage in such lines as “We are rather slapdash” (Simon) and “We never mean anything” (Sorel).  The Bliss family members are played by Alaina Zachary (Judith), Kerry Kehoe (David), David McConnell (Simon), and Nicole Breihan (Sorel); their guests are played by Hardy Pinnell (Sandy), Leslie Dillen (Myra), Marcus Vaughter (Richard) and Mairi Glover (Jackie.)  Glenna Hill plays Clara, the Bliss maid.  This cast is ably supported by set designer Stan Abbott, lighting designer Jes Bracich, sound and lighting engineer Jeff Tarnoff, and costume designer Mary Becker who was aided by her daughter Joanna.  The McGiffins would like to give special thanks to College of Santa Fe President Stewart Kirk and Cheryl Odom, costumer for the college for twenty-eight years, who opened their vaults and provided invaluable period costumes for this production.

The McGiffins were quite open about the collaborative nature of their dual directorship.  While Jim has a more technical background and Carol’s talents lie in texture and color, they discuss all aspects of the production and “talk through the blocking.”  Yet they have never had a major conflict in their dual directorships.  Jim mentioned that in their first such position – a production of Guys and Dolls – they discovered that they had almost the same notes often in similar language.  They are having a similar experience with HF: When they compare notes at the end of a rehearsal they are generally in agreement about 75% of the time.

As a performer herself, Carol “tends to direct from an actor’s standpoint.  I like to work as an ensemble and encourage and want actors’ input and often will take cast ideas and rework the blocking.  I want active actor participants.” Rather than plot, Jim believes the success of HF is “dependent primarily on the characters on the stage” and the absolute necessity of “the audience being engaged with the characters.”  Both directors are pleased to be working with such professional actors because it allows them the time to attend to “those tiny bits of stagecraft” that often are central to having a performer “come across as a real character rather than as an actor playing a character.”  The McGiffins have spent valuable rehearsal time on the correct pouring of tea into tea cups and taking off and putting on a coat.  Jim even let Hardy Pinnell borrow his old two-tone shoes to help the younger actor get into character.  Finally, Carol reveals that pacing is the essence of HF: “The audience needs to be with you so one needs to take up the tempo, making the audience concentrate and thus allowing the pace to be taken down later in the show.”  It is not only Coward’s witty, insightful dialogue that needs focus, but the entire arc of the play; in fact, Carol believes “the pacing needs equal focus.”

The McGiffins are in total agreement in what they desire for their audiences: Taking Coward’s belief in the “talent to amuse” as the starting point for their own work, their desire is to have theater-goers “enjoy the Blisses.  Success will be simply if the audiences enjoy it [HF].”

I suggest Santa Feans head to the Santa Fe Playhouse at the end of the month and catch the Bliss family in action as a prelude to the Burning of Zozobra with its promise of eliminating Old Man Gloom.  For me, Hay Fever is a natural antidote to the all-too-real cares of the everyday world: “No Plot, No Action, No Problem.”

Hay Fever will be presented at the Santa Fe Playhouse (East DeVargas Street) from August 27 to September 13, 2009, on Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 P.M. and on Sundays at 2 P.M.  There will be a First Friday Gala on August 28, 2009 and all Thursday performances will be “pay-what-you-wish” evenings.  For more complete information on ticket prices and reservations, call (505) 988-4262, email playhouse@santafeplayhouse.org or go online at santafeplayhouse.org.