Hay fever

In Short

This play is a brilliant, light-hearted comedy of manners that centers on the Bliss family—a retired actress, a novelist, and their two grown children—whose utter lack of social boundaries leaves their weekend guests bewildered and ultimately fleeing in desperation. By treating every moment of their lives as a dramatic scene, the Blisses create a world where sincerity is impossible. It has endured for a century because of its razor-sharp dialogue, its masterful construction, and its timeless, affectionate satire of people who prefer the theater of life to life itself.

The Story

The Bliss family lives in a comfortable, cluttered house at Cookham, where they operate under the assumption that the ordinary conventions of society do not apply to them. Each family member—Judith, the retired stage star; David, the novelist; and their adult children, Simon and Sorel—has independently invited a guest for the weekend without telling the others. When these four unsuspecting visitors arrive, they find themselves trapped in a house where the hosts are perpetually performing, switching moods, and engaging in psychological games that the guests are neither equipped nor invited to understand.

The conflict begins almost immediately as the guests—a diplomatist, a young woman, a fawning admirer, and a worldly socialite—are drawn into the family’s orbit. The Blisses, bored by their own company and the lack of "glamour" in their rural existence, start using their guests as props in their own private dramas. Judith flirts with a young man to recapture her youth, Sorel plays with the affections of a diplomat, and Simon engages in a tempestuous, petty relationship with the socialite. The house becomes a pressure cooker of shifting alliances and manufactured crises.

As Saturday evening progresses, the situation devolves into total absurdity. The family insists on playing parlor games, but these quickly turn into weapons. When the family begins to bicker, the guests are treated to a spectacle of theatrical hysteria. Judith, sensing that her audience is becoming uncomfortable, decides to escalate the farce. She feigns a dramatic, tragic confession of a secret affair, treating her own family to a scene from a play she once performed. The guests, unable to distinguish between the family’s genuine emotions and their constant play-acting, are left completely baffled and increasingly indignant.

By Sunday morning, the atmosphere is toxic. The guests have spent a miserable night, and the family is back to their routines, blissfully indifferent to the damage they have caused. The final straw occurs when the family begins to argue over a detail in David’s new manuscript, devolving into a loud, screaming match that ignores the guests entirely. Realizing they are merely background characters in the Blisses' ongoing, self-absorbed performance, the guests make a silent, collective decision to flee. They gather their belongings and slip out of the house unnoticed while the family continues to bicker. The play ends on a note of perfect, ironic calm: the family, having successfully driven their audience away, simply returns to their breakfast and their own narcissistic pursuits, with Judith casually declaring her intention to return to the stage.

How It Unfolds

The stage is set The family reveals their total disregard for social norms while simultaneously clashing over their overlapping plans for the weekend. Tension builds as they realize their individual guests are about to descend upon the house at once.

The intruders arrive The four guests appear, each carrying their own expectations, only to be immediately ignored or subsumed by the family’s erratic behavior. The hosts treat their arrival as a minor inconvenience to their own creative projects.

The game begins A series of parlor games acts as a catalyst for the underlying hostility between the family members and their guests. The family’s inability to focus on anything but their own egos makes a relaxing weekend impossible.

The performance peaks Judith leads the room in an impromptu, high-drama reenactment of a bad stage play, leaving the guests terrified and confused. The line between reality and performance completely dissolves in a burst of theatrical hysterics.

The quiet exodus Sunday morning dawns with breakfast, petty squabbles, and utter oblivion on the part of the family. The guests seize the moment to disappear, leaving the household to return to its self-contained bubble of dysfunction.

The People

Judith Bliss is the vibrant, aging stage queen who craves the spotlight above all else. She manages her family and guests as if they were a cast, failing to understand that her "performance" is alienating everyone around her.

David Bliss is an aloof, self-important novelist. He views his family’s chaos as an annoyance that threatens his writing, yet he is just as self-absorbed and incapable of empathy as the rest of them.

Simon and Sorel Bliss are the younger versions of their parents. They are intelligent and sharp-tongued, constantly vying for their mother’s attention while simultaneously mocking the "normality" they claim to disdain but secretly fear.

The Guests (Richard, Myra, Sandy, and Jackie) represent the world outside the Bliss house. They arrive expecting a weekend of hospitality but are slowly transformed from individuals into mere spectators and victims of the family's relentless psychological games.

In Its Own Voice

“I should like to be a fresh, open-air girl with a passion for games.”

Sorel expresses this longing early on, highlighting the fundamental tension between the family's artistic affectations and a simpler, more grounded existence.

“So many illusions shattered—so many dreams trodden in the dust!”

Judith utilizes this melodramatic line during her "performance," perfectly illustrating her habit of using theatrical clichés to manipulate those around her.

What It's Really About

The play explores the high price of narcissism and the insulation that comes with being too "artistic." The Blisses live in a vacuum where other people are only useful if they can serve as an audience or a foil for a new idea. It asks whether those who live entirely within their own heads can ever form genuine connections. The family’s tragedy is not that they are unhappy, but that they have lost the ability to distinguish their own lives from a script, making them perpetually incapable of sincerity. It is a portrait of a family that has mistaken ego for personality and performance for love.

Why Read It Today

Readers will find this work delightful if they enjoy biting, fast-paced dialogue and the sight of high-society pretense being dismantled. There is a distinct pleasure in watching the "superior" Bliss family reveal their own profound emptiness through their lack of manners. If you enjoy plays that are fundamentally about the absurdity of human behavior, you will find the house at Cookham a fascinating, if occasionally frustrating, place to visit.

Modern readers should be aware that the play is deeply rooted in the specific social codes of the 1920s. The humor relies on the contrast between the "bohemian" behavior of the Blisses and the rigid, polite expectations of their guests. Some of the period attitudes—such as the casual dismissiveness toward the servants—can feel jarring, but these elements serve to heighten the portrait of the family’s profound, structural selfishness. The play is not a deep psychological drama, but rather a masterclass in tone and rhythm. Its strength lies in how it captures the feeling of being trapped in a room with people who are far more interested in their own performance than in you. It remains a timeless reminder that while drama is essential for the stage, it is often a terrible way to run a household.