Over-age Coward down the ages
There’s a curious problem with Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, just opened at the Chichester Festival Theatre, which critics are too kind (though not at Whatsonstage!) to mention. Judith Bliss is always played by an actress at least twenty years too old for the part.
Diana Rigg looks great, but she’s past seventy, and she stoops slightly to conquer; how could this Judith be the mother of twenty-something siblings Simon and Sorel? The first Judith, Marie Tempest, was sixty, but in those days juveniles looked middle-aged anyway.
How Noel Coward sat through his own rehearsals of the National Theatre revival in 1964 with eighty-year-old Edith Evans making a dog’s dinner of the role without going mad we shall never know; he certainly went bananas over the old dear’s senility.
Since then, we’ve had Judiths of various shapes and sizes: Penelope Keith, Geraldine McEwan, Judi Dench, none of them ideal, none of them sexy, for a start. And as David Benedict said to me last night at the Barbican premiere of Improbable’s Panic, Judith is only saying she’s going to retire in order to be dissuaded. She’s not an OAP, she’s a drama queen, for God’s sake.
The best Judith of all would have been Maggie Smith and indeed she played it at Stratford, Ontario, in Canada (so perhaps that doesn’t count) in 1976 when she was the perfect age of forty-two. I’ve only seen that performance on video, but it’s hilarious, and of course Maggie makes a more than credible object of Sandy Tyrell’s sexual desire.
Rigg is elegant and charming and monstrous in a minor way — there’s a great moment when Guy Henry’s diplomat pecks her gently on the back of the neck and she sits up suddenly, as if mad, staring at the audience, and bleats, a whole lifetime of adulterous possibilities unravelling before her, “What are we going to do?”
We’re suddenly surrounded by actors playing characters much younger than themselves. Hamlet may not be as young as Ben Whishaw was, buit he’s not thirty-seven — as are David Tennant and Jude Law.
The knock-on effect in Hay Fever is similarly disruptive to credibility. Caroline Langrishe plays Myra Arundel, the vamp who goes around using sex as a shrimping net, like some wannabe middle-aged diseuse. She reeks of growing older.
In that famous NT production, Maggie Smith as a breathtakingly gorgeous young Myra got the biggest laugh of the night on the line, “This haddock’s disgusting,” and no-one’s raised a titter with it since, certainly not old Caroline.
The biggest cock-up in Nikolai Foster’s Chichester production, though, is the business of the doors. These are crucial because of the coming and going, the door in the face gag, and the final resounding bang as the guests creep away.
For some reason known only to himself, designer Robert Jones has done away with a front door in the hallway and amalgamated its function into that of the French windows which lead to the garden. It’s not only a mistake, it ruins the comedy. When the guests bang the door behind them, stage-management has to produce a sound effect, as French windows don’t “bang” like a front door.
Judith Bliss’s first entrance is from the garden, where she’s been making a song and dance of pruning the calceolarias.
Maggie Smith materialised behind the sofa and later walked casually round to the front only then revealing the fact that she was wearing big green wellies. Huge laugh. Diana Rigg shuffles in and bends over, taking off the boots to no comic effect whatsoever.
There’s a great gulf between comic genius and comic ability…and we’re still waiting for a flawless production of this wonderful play, one that is still fresh and funny and, in the week of yet another Whose Afraid of Virginai Woolf?, still the modern theatre prototype of the “get the guests” genre.
Judith Bliss is no more the perfect hostess than was Lady Macbeth or Clytemnestra. A least she doesn’t kill anyone. They, on the other hand, didn’t play “in the manner of the word,” and were much the poorer for not doing so.
April 17th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Re Over-age coward down the ages. Well. perhaps some actors are guilty of getting older and playing younger than they should. Although other productions such as A Little Night Music and, since you mention it, Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf, would suggest otherwise.
Personally, I would gently point out to Michael Coveney and quite a few other critics, you too are no longer in your prime. “I remember blah blah back in nineteen seventy whatever..”
Your criticism reeks of growing older.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Can I ask where you saw the video of Maggie Smith’s performance?
Also, I think one reason for the onslaught of septuagenarian actresses coveting the part may be a problem of contemporary attitudes towards Coward himself. I don’t think he has yet to be properly recognized in a 21st century context; his plays are often put on as a blissful nostalgia trip (particularly with something so off the wall and socially irrelevant as Hay Fever). Consequently, actresses who there is a similarly nostalgic fondness for are linked to the play, and the two seem ideal for each other (though these are actresses who are by no means no longer incapable of giving a fantastic performance).
April 18th, 2009 at 5:30 am
The video of the Stratford Ontario Hay Fever in which Maggie Smith played Judith Bliss is (or was) held in the archive at the theatre. Sorry, Polly, that my criticism “reeks of growing older.” I am growing older, so are you. That’s what happens. But I’m not pretending to be a middle-aged actress in a play. Blogging aside, a critic’s job is to live in the present, but it’s also part of the job to set things in context and maintain, where possible, and appropriate, some sort of historical over-view.
April 18th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Belinda Lang was an excellent Judith Bliss at Manchester’s Royal Exchange last summer. She’s early fifties (I’m guessing) and so was entirely convincing as the mother of the brattish pair. And although she didn’t play her as ’sexy’ she did make her intriguing, flirty, seductive, vain and deeply sympathetic. Miles better than Dench et al, I’d say.
April 19th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Congratulations, Michael, on such a restrained response to the banal comment from polly carey.
I for one hugely value the additional perspectives that only experienced critics can bring to their work.
Keep up the good work.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:35 pm
My dream casting would be Joanna Lumley as Judith, Nicholas Le Provost as David, Catherine McCormack as Myra, Rory Kinnear as Richard Greatham, Kris Marshall as Sandy and Sheridan Smith as Jackie the Flapper. I think they’d restore the play’s comedy classic status.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
My dream casting of Judith Bliss was the one I saw this very evening in Chichester - Dame Diana Rigg!
As said by same great actress of nearly 71 ‘it seems most theatre critics seem to have been seconded from the sport’s section’. They are paid for their drivel and try and impress themselves with their oh so caustic remarks and miss the whole bloody point of a play like ‘Hay fever’ entertainment! The comic timing of all at tonight’s performance was spot on! I really hope that Mr Coveney isn’t paid for writing such rubbish. Because if he is I want my share for my part in this too!
April 26th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
As stated in the blog, it’s not the first time that an actor played a character younger than themselves. Even so, Dame Diana is wonderful as Judith Bliss. Indeed, the entire cast is excellent. They delivered their lines expertly, and the audience responded to them. There was much laughter by the audience through-out the play. This production was very entertaining, and beautifully designed.
April 27th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I recently returned to the USA after spending a week in the UK. The primary reason for the trip was to see Dame Diana Rigg in Hay Fever. I found Dame Diana’s performance to be exceptional and unique. I think many theatre critics find themselves in a rut, and believe that everyone must play a certain character in the same way. WRONG! A great actor is willing to take risks or to see the character in a different way. This is how Diana Rigg played Judith Bliss. I also think Noel Coward would approve because a great dramatist believes that there are different ways to play a role. An early 20th century interpretation of Hamlet would be very different than an early 21st century performance.
Diana played Judith as a more realistic character, a character must more sensitive, but also very much a drama queen. Going OTT would have ruined the image.
It was so nice to see Diana do comedy again - her timing was superb. Actors, unlike drama criticis, are more than willing to take risks when playing a role. Personally, I would like to see this play transfer (with more time in rehearsal) and a new set so the guests do not arrive by the garden door (a prosecenium stage is better for this — if you have a chance to come to NYC, do see the revival of Blithe Spirit). I would love for this play to move to the West End to allow Dame Diana to further develop and grow into the performance - and hone it with her special magic.