Hay Fever (Style)

Style

Dialogue

Coward was one of the first playwrights of his generation to use naturalistic dialogue, that is, to have his characters speak in the same ordinary phrases that people use in everyday conversation. Earlier dramatists had employed an epigrammatic style, wherein the actors on stage spoke in quotable “epigrams,” complex and witty phrases that sound poetic or literary. By contrast, Coward’s plays rely on the interaction between charismatic performers to grab attention and the context of a given line to generate laughs. Viewers might not leave the theater quoting a single clever phrase, however, chances are they laughed their way through the actual performance because of the amusing situations depicted on stage.

Comedy of Manners

In a comedy of manners, humor and interest derive from social interaction and conversation rather than from elaborate or suspenseful plots. Jane Austen’s novels and Oscar Wilde’s plays, for example, can both be categorized as comedies of manners. Hay Fever, with its focus on a series of amusing situations that all take place in one upper class home, is a sophisticated and irreverent adaptation of this comedic form.

Farce

Hay Fever employs many elements of farce, a comic theatrical form in which exaggerated characters find themselves in improbable situations and engage in wordplay and physical humor intended to provoke simple hearty laughter from the audience. Although Coward’s play carries a bit more social weight than a traditional farce, it does make use of farcical word games and broadly drawn characters.

Irony

Many of the humorous comments made by the members of the Bliss family are good examples of dramatic irony. This type of irony comes from situations where the impact of a line or action depends upon the audience being aware of something the character is not. So for example, it is ironic, and therefore funny, when David — who both accepts unusual behavior from his family and behaves quite unconventionally himself — reacts to his guests’ surreptitious departure by saying “People really do behave in the most extraordinary manner these days.” Although the audience is aware of how David’s comment actually describes his own behavior, David himself does not see this and so makes his observation free of self-reflection.

Juxtaposition

Throughout the play, Coward juxtaposes the carefree unconventional Blisses with their anxious, convention-bound guests. Each new pairing of characters provides an amusing contrast between one of the self-absorbed impulsive family members and an uneasy, confused visitor. These oppositions — both of personality types and personal expectations — produce much of the work’s humor.

Pace

The success of a Coward comedy depends upon the live production maintaining a fast pace. The humor and impact of a play like Hay Fever comes partly from the rapid staccato dialogue, the type of syncopated speedy delivery of lines that would later become the hallmark of late-twentieth-century plays by writers like David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross).

Romantic Comedy

Coward generates a good deal of humor by disrupting the audience’s expectations regarding the traditional plot of the romantic comedy, which is usually a story of a love affair between two people who must overcome obstacles before they can marry — or at least end the play in a happy conclusion. As Hay Fever opens, the viewer might expect a plot in which a series of mismatched couples swap partners in order to find happier pairings — in other words the typical romantic comedy plot multiplied by four. Yet Coward thwarts such expectations, making fun of the familiar storylines about illicit love and adulterous spouses during the course of the play and in the end leaving all the members of the Bliss family just as they were when the play started.

Satire

Satire is a type of humorous critique used in both fiction and drama to ridicule political or social philosophies. Hay Fever, with its depiction of self-absorbed bohemian artists and their misguided conventional admirers, can be seen as a gentle satire of the excesses both of pretentious creative people and of the adoring public who indulge such egotistical behavior because these people are famous. This has come to be known as the “cult of personality” or “cult of celebrity,” in which famous people are so revered that they are above social reproach.