As modern farces go, Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off” is not only one of the funniest but may also be the most elegantly conceived.
The play, in revival at the Geffen Playhouse in a co-production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, is a daunting physical challenge to perform. An Olympic track and field team looking to raise its cardio fitness might consider adding a rehearsal of “Noises Off” to its training regimen.
With the precision of a geometric proof, Frayn built his farce on the back of another. His play revolves around an invented sex comedy called “Nothing On” that’s about to launch its provincial British tour. The company of performers assembled to perform this hoary property consists of has-beens, wannabes, klutzes and martyred veterans.
Everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Doors refuse to open, lines are bungled, props aren’t where they should be and cues are missed. But what tilts this ill-starred production into epic disaster is the backstage drama that breaks out when romantic jealousy spreads throughout the company.
“Noises Off” is the grandfather of a genre that has become newly popular through “The Play That Goes Wrong” and its pratfalling cousins. But Frayn’s work represents the gold standard of the form.
Divided into three acts, “Noises Off” provides three different experiences of “Nothing On,” the theatrical claptrap the actors within the play are trying to survive. Act One consists of a stop and start dress rehearsal unfolding under the irascible gaze of the show’s director, Lloyd Dallas (Rick Holmes). Act Two is set backstage a month into the tour, when conflicts emerge among company members, who have begun mimicking the rowdy libidinous antics of their characters. Act Three offers a performance at a point when nervous tension, romantic fury and artistic demoralization bring the production to a nervous breakdown.
In imagining a theatrical bomb for the ages, Frayn wrote an indelible crowd-pleaser for the modern repertory. High up on my list of the funniest nights I’ve had in the theater is the 2001 Broadway revival of “Noises Off,” directed by Jeremy Sams and featuring a nonpareil ensemble that included Patti LuPone, Faith Prince, Richard Easton and a sublimely humorous Katie Finneran, who won a Tony Award for playing Brooke, the clueless young actress who flits about with a stupefied smile until she loses her contact lens and then stumbles helplessly through the country manor set of “Nothing On.”
The opening night audience at the Geffen Playhouse seemed enraptured by the hilarity. I love the play somewhat more than I do this production. My expectations may have been too high. Not that I didn’t get caught up in the comic mayhem. The revival, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, proceeds with propulsive giddiness. Only a statue could resist laughing.
Yet the casting struck me in spots as counterintuitive. I was left with the impression of an ensemble company that had allocated roles based on who was available or perhaps overdue for a plum part. Shapiro may have had her pick of talent inside or outside Steppenwolf’s revered ensemble, but some of the choices seemed a bit of a stretch.
Dotty (Ora Jones), who is trying to resurrect her career by investing and starring in “Nothing On,” and Garry Lejeune (David Lind), a spectacularly inarticulate and volatile actor who’s having an affair with Dotty, are an unlikely couple. But a mismatched Jones and Lind make the characters’ tempestuous romance seem beyond the bounds of farcical absurdity.
Stretching matters further, Garry plays a character in “Nothing On” who’s carrying on an affair with the brainless floozie played by Brooke (Amanda Fink). Their hanky-panky is foiled, but the attempted assignation seems completely random.
James Vincent Meredith plays Frederick Fellowes, an actor incessantly peppering the director with questions about his character’s motivation. Yet everything about his hammy manner suggests an old-fashioned thespian in love with the sound of his own voice and utterly oblivious to method psychology.
I could go on, but let me instead praise Holmes in the role of the fed-up director. Sitting in the audience during the first act rehearsal, Holmes’ Lloyd grudgingly offers words of encouragement while seething with impatience. Herding cats is clearly not his strong suit. He’d like to lay the blame on his second-rate company, but he can’t escape his own role in the ensuing fiasco.
While conspicuously having an affair with Brooke, Lloyd perpetrates heartbreak backstage. Poppy (an appropriately mousy Vaneh Assadourian) is madly in love with him and has important news to share, if only he’d give her a minute of his time. Poppy is one of the stage managers who, along with Max Stewart’s convincingly overworked Tim, is trying to stem the backstage chaos — an impossible feat that not even the Little Dutch Boy could manage.
Steppenwolf Theatre co-artistic director Audrey Francis brings a casual grace to her portrayal of Belinda Blair, the blithe peacemaker of the troupe who knows all the company’s secrets and spills them every chance she gets. Francis Guinan humorously captures the soused disregard of Selsdon Mowbray, who bungles his every entrance and has to be monitored for furtive tippling.
If you haven’t seen a great production of “Noises Off,” then you might think the play’s reputation is inflated. The staginess of this revival doesn’t always feel fresh. Actors, even when licensed to go into over-the-top mode, still must hit their marks and strive for originality.
The scale of the job might be too much — physically — for the Geffen Playhouse. This is especially apparent in Act Two, when the cramped stage renders the comic choreography smudgy.
Act One and Three take place in the country house that scenic designer Todd Rosenthal has conjured as a piece of Merrie Olde England real estate with dark wooden finishes and a bevy of farcical doors. Act Two, however, gives us an alternative backstage view of a matinee performance of “Nothing On,” and this is where the trouble begins.
The vivid design scheme struggles to keep up with the farce’s logistical demands. The narrowness of the playing area makes it difficult for the actors to do more than offer a stylized approximation of the slapstick ballet that Frayn has engineered.
The unflagging exertion of Shapiro’s company is ultimately more impressive than the execution. The simultaneity of the play’s two levels gets lost in the comic mayhem of Act Two. Act Three, which brings a performance of “Nothing On” to utter collapse, doesn’t quite reach the lunatic heights that Frayn intends. But by this point exhaustion has set in for actors and audience alike.
Still, “Noises Off” offers comic balm for anxious minds. The production will no doubt gain in precision as it works out its kinks. And theatergoers new to the play will encounter, whether they recognize it or not, one of the great modern English language farces.
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