Word: blisse
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...setting is the country home of the Bliss family, a clearly ironic name. Each member of this ill-mannered, artistic bohemian brood had invited a personal guest to the house for the weekend to be wined, dined and seduced. When it becomes apparent that the family's guests will all be staying on the same weekend, the family devises a unique method of dealing with the overcrowding...
Katey Leff plays the mother, Judith Bliss. A former actress, Judith has never forgotten her glory years on the stage, nor will she let anyone else forget. An actress has to have skill to portray bad acting well. Whether or not this is strictly true in this case, Leff does a marvelous job of being overdramatic in her every motions and word, flailing her arms in dramatic poses and pouring out emotion over trivialities...
John Nicolson slides naturally into the role of the artist at work, because he has ripped off the mannerisms of several members of A-World cafe society. As the father of the Bliss family, he is quietly and yet severely perturbed by any distractions in his work." He puts the least stress on Anglicizing his speech, despite an ethnic advantage; the rest of the cast ought to have followed his example...
David Wingrove adeptly integrates the comic play within the Bliss family with the comic play on the stage; but then again, Hayfever is a play that could almost direct itself. There were only a few times when the actors made unnatural motions while falling into theatrical tableaus...
...love with their young children that they wake them in mid-evening, just to be with them some more; the long-married woman who reflexively takes on the opposite mood to whatever her husband is feeling; the house salesman who comes close to true rapture in envisioning domestic bliss for all his customers. When Kitty, the best-sketched figure, loses her second husband to another man, the reader can guess the precise tone in which she describes her rival to divert sympathy: "Don't be silly. He's a nice man. If he had asked me, I would have moved...