Possum Point Players Opens HAY FEVER This Week

With a play set on a lazy weekend in June, Possum Point Players production of "Noel Coward's Hay Fever" follows suit as they open the classic British comedy on Friday, June 3. However, those attending any of the performances June 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12 will find that a lazy weekend at the country home of the Bliss family defies that definition.

Another realization will be that time spent with the Bliss family does not exhibit any characteristics of bliss. The parents, Judith and David Are a bit arrogant as well as eccentric and their adult children, Simon and Sorel are every bit as self-absorbed and dramatically eccentric as their parents. The Bliss family tree is leafed out by actors Diane Counts of Millsboro as mother Judith, and Chuck Rafferty of Laurel as father David, and the spoiled and class-conscious children are portrayed by Seaford residents Abbie Porter as Sorel and Dillon Mangene as Simon.

Also of Seaford, EJ Panico portrays the housekeeper Clara, a holdover helpmate from Judith's career as an actress of some stature. As the invited but very much unaware and unprepared house guests, Lori Ann Johnson, Rehoboth Beach, Paul Jon West, Milford, Lily Hearn, Laurel, and Matt Hatfield, Salisbury, MD., round out the cast. Each guest was only expected by one of the four individual hosts, yet each of the Bliss family has no trouble incorporating someone else's guest into their own made-up on the go family theatrics. All the guests and the audience can do is roll with it as the Blisses go further and further out on a limb of outrageous comedic behavior.

"Hay Fever" is appropriate for all general audiences and all seats are reserved. Friday and Saturday shows are at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday matinees are at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $22 for adults, and $20 seniors and students and can be purchased at www.possumpointplayers.org or the ticketline 302-856-4560.

An Ocean View resident, director Meg Kelly said the four Blisses love to play unannounced and unexplained games with each other as well as with guests, but they neglect to let anyone else know that a game is in session. Kelly said the comedy shows Coward poking fun at the shallow, if financially lofty, upper class of England in the 1920s.

She said, "Each family member quietly and privately invited a guest, but none of the guests end up with their original host. The guests may be uncomfortable, but the audience will be left laughing. They will surely agree with one of the guests who said, I believe they are all mad, you know. "

In "Hay Fever," the residents of the Bliss country home at Cookham, Berkshire, by the River Thames, go farther and farther afield enjoying their own mind games and the undefined and forced roles of their unsuspecting house guests. However, reality begins to dawn on the guests. They openly plan to extricate themselves as a family argument ensues on some Parisian geography David includes in his latest novel. Intent on getting in the best criticism and insults, the bickering Blisses barely notice as the guests make their move. David does grant them a passing comment, "People really do behave in the most extraordinary manner these days." before jumping full bore back into esoteric and wacky argument and exchange of family insults.

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