"Noises Off' at People's Light (1st review)

The farces of the Belle Époque playwright Georges Feydeau and others usually involve plenty of slamming doors, people running frantically up and down steps, illicit romantic encounters, hairbreadth escapes and many, many pratfalls.

Michael Frayn's 1982 Broadway and West End hit, Noises Off, employs all of these conventions while adding another dimension: It's a farce about a disastrous production of a farce.

A small British repertory company is rehearsing a farce called Nothing On, about two couples who, unknown to each other, are meeting for romantic trysts in a country house that both couples think is vacant. Though Nothing On is scheduled to open in less than 24 hours, things are going very badly, to the director's mounting exasperation: Actors forget lines and miss cues; props are misplaced; doors stick. Worst of all is the constant unreliability of Seldon, an elderly actor with a penchant for tippling.

Exhausting pace

Act II takes place backstage during a matinee a few weeks later. The company seems to have pulled the production together, but romances have blossomed among the cast members and wild jealousies erupt during the performance. The actors try to sabotage one another's entrances and exits; one even ties her lover's shoelaces together just before he must run down a flight of stairs.

In Act III, we're out front again, witnessing the final performance of the "play's" two-and-a-half-month tour, by which time the actors and the production have completely gone to pot.

Most of this action is very funny. But in a play that clocks in at two hours and 15 minutes, plus intermission, it's also rather exhausting, for the audience as well as the actors. Those masters of screen farce, the Marx Brothers, never allowed their best efforts to exceed 90 minutes. Frayn violates the old vaudeville maxim, "Always leave them wanting more."

And Noises Off peaks early, with the frantic backstage slapstick of Act II. After that mayhem, much of the final act seems anticlimactic.

Trousers down

Nevertheless, under Pete Pryor's expert direction, the People's Light cast rides roughshod over the play's imperfections. The actors include Leonard C. Haas as the long-suffering director; Marcia Saunders as a character actress who has trouble keeping a lid on her emotions; David Howey as the elderly dipsomaniac; David Ingram as an actor who seems to have severe difficulty keeping his trousers up; Liz Filios as the company's sole stalwart trouper; Christopher Kelly as a young hotheaded actor; Jessica Bedford as the company bimbo; and Andrew Kane and Leah Walton as two bewildered stagehands.

Notwithstanding the play's length and uneven structure, you're unlikely to find a better light summer entertainment than Noises Off.♦


To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here