Noises Off
I counted 7
doors, one curtained attic doorway, a huge window (smack center upstage), and
12 stairs (including the landing) as I sat down 5th row center and
marveled at the two-story set for Sherman Community Players production
of Noises Off. The
plethora of doors alone will give a savvy theater goer one’s first hint that
this play is a farce. Furthermore, the
farcical nature of the proceedings is later proven out by the surfeit of
attractive women scantily clad in lingerie, balanced by a cabal of men with
their trousers down ‘round their ankles, who abound in this play. In short, a farce like Noises Off
is a comedy in the broadest sense of the term.
While there might be witty dialogue, and there indeed is in Noises
Off, the play is one slippery slope of comedy littered in banana peels
or, as is literally the case with this play, literally littered with sardines.
At lights
up, the telephone is ringing in the grand room of what one of the characters
later describes as a delightful “16th century posset mill”, but is
it? Barreling through the door from the
kitchen bearing a plate of sardines and a newspaper comes a spandex-clad
colossus of cleaning who, as we learn from her conversation with the telephone caller,
is one Mrs. Clackett, a maid of all-work looking after the house while
her employers are most definitely not at home but off in Spain. Interrupted as she has been by the caller, Mrs.
Clackett is delayed in putting her feet up and settling in to watch the Royal
whatsit on the telly. But, as she starts
to leave and get the caller some information about letting the house, our Mrs.
Clackett hears the voice of God, or does she?
Most
certainly, both she and those of us sitting in the dark hear the voice, which
provides instructions about what exactly to do with the sardines, the newspaper
and the phone. However, it is at this
point, we in the dark come to realize that the voice is not actually that of God
but that of Lloyd Dallas, the director of the play in which actress Dotty
is portraying Mrs. Clackett. For
what we’ve been watching is the desperately late and last minute to midnight
final dress rehearsal of Nothing On, the fictional play within
the play, Noises Off.
Noises
Off is a play in
three acts and in this first act we meet all the characters and come to
understand the challenge they’re each facing as they prepare to open in a touring
production of Nothing On. Nikki
Tworek’s Dotty has put her own money into the show (did she FAIL to
learn the two cardinal rules of producing as explained by Max Bialystock in The
Producers?!?!?) and is most delightfully dotty and a true force of nature as
she assays the lead in Nothing On, Mrs. Clackett, a
housekeeper. Our god-like voice in the
dark is the hugely handsome Ed Richardson’s Lloyd Dallas, a
director who unashamedly accepts and acknowledges the fact that he is god. Throughout the show, it’s great fun to watch Richardson’s
Lloyd struggle to maintain an even keel as he tries to steer this ship
of fools.
For besides
dotty Dotty there’s the other players including Jim Bloomingdales’s
Garry, an actor who seemingly suffers from “part-timers” and can’t
finish a single thought, although he is compelled to share each and every one
as he struggles to play Roger, the chap from the firm letting the
house. Garry’s character Roger
arrives at the house for an assignation with a pretty young woman, Hannah
Burns’s Brooke, the vacuous actress who plays the vacuous Vicki
in Nothing On. Now, I have no idea if this is true, and it
certainly is not mentioned in the program in Ms. Burns’ bio but,
I think Hannah Burns in real life is probably a nuclear physicist or perhaps
very near to curing cancer, for it is my conceit that only a very, very, smart
person could play anyone as absent as Brooke/Vicki. As Gertrude Stein famously said about the
city of Oakland, I think it could be said of Brooke/Vicki that “there’s
no there there”. Burns is
hysterical in every sense of the word as Brooke/Vicki.
The next “actors”
we meet are Blake Aaron Rice’s Frederick who plays Philip, the
master of the house who is supposed to be hiding from the tax man in
Spain. Rice’s Frederick is
a five year-old in need of a big hug as he seeks motivation and comfort from Richardson’s
Lloyd. Here again we might have
another real-life physicist as Rice’s Frederick is convincingly
not very smart about things. Helping
move Frederick and the action along is Maxine Frauenheim’s
all-knowing and unflappable Belinda, who plays Phillip’s missus Flavia. Finally, rounding out the Nothing On
cast is Bruce Butler as Selsden, a well-soused and well-seasoned
player who Dotty thinks can still deliver on stage in the role of a
burglar, if he doesn’t disappear into the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Watching Butler as he staggeringly
strives to find and keep a bottle of booze, while everyone else fights to foil
him, is flat out funny from first to last.
Importantly,
just as behind every good man there’s an excellent woman, behind every good
director there’s an excellent crew. Here,
behind Richardson’s Lloyd we have Ben Fuhr’s
sleep-deprived Timothy Allgood, who has labored to put up the entire set
by himself but whose Sisyphean labors are never done. Fuhr’s turn in the third act is
especially funny. Finally, Carissa
Hodges plays stage manager Poppy Norton-Taylor, who puts a high C in
high-strung and is quite believable and funny as a woman scorned.
The entire
cast are not only gifted actors but are also excellent with physical
comedy. You’ll see their physical comedy
chops in Act Two, as well as Act Three of Noises Off, wherein we
see the cast and crew of Nothing On as they perform the last act,
the one we saw them rehearing at the start of the play. The gimmick in Act Two, and it is an amazing
one, is that the entire two-story grand room of a 16th century
posset mill set is turned around so the back of the Nothing On
set now faces you, the Noises Off audience. That’s right, you’ll see the mayhem and magic
of Nothing On from behind the scenes as the cast and crew attempt
to do justice to the play, Nothing On, while backstage they come
to blows. Act Two is an amazing piece of
theater in and of itself and this cast delivers.
Lastly, by
Act Three the Nothing On tour has reached it’s end and, while in
Act Two we saw the cast and crew manage to keep the show afloat while exacting
revenge on each other backstage, here in Act Three we see the play within the
play once again from the audience’s perspective (Yes, the set has been turned
back around … Make sure you watch it!!) and we gleefully watch as Nothing
On implodes. And, oh, what a
gloriously marvelous mess it is. Act
Two, along with the play’s gentle skewering throughout of actors and theater,
is why those in the theater love this play and dream of playing it!
Joe Barr and Gena Graham are Co-Directors
of Noises Off, which is a good thing as the praise I rightfully
heap upon this amazingly ebullient production might be too much for just one
person.
Has 2023 been hard? Did you just have to write a big check to the tax man? Did your cat come home in a family way? To quote Cabaret, here you can “Leave you troubles outside! So - life is disappointing? Forget it! We have no troubles here!”. I drove an hour each way to see this show and it was more than worth it. GO! Grab your tickets at scptheater.org
Audience Rating: PG-13 due to sexual innuendo and scantily clad cast members.
Running Time: 2 hours and 45 minutes with two 15minute intermissions
Accessible
seating: Available
Hearing
Devices Available: Available
Sensory Friendly Showing: Not Available
Production Sound Level: Comfortable Volume
Noises and
Visuals to Know About: One actress is in ONLY bra and panties for a great
deal of the show, although the costume is scarcely more risqué than a bikini.
See you at the theater!
David Ellivloc
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