The second show of Bay Colony Productions season is "Noises Off" a
1982 play by Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn
was in the wings watching a performance of "Chinamen", a farce that he
had written for Lynn Redgrave. According to the playwright, "It was
funnier from behind than in front" and he vowed to write a farce from
behind. In theatrical stage directions, the term "noises off'' specifies
sounds that are meant to be heard from offstage. Frayn plays on the
concept of a play within a play, in this case a play entitled "Nothing
On" in which a young girl runs around in her underwear, men drop their
trousers, and many doors continually open and shut. Each of the three
acts of "Noises Off" contains a performance of the first act of "Nothing
On''. Act One is set at the dress rehearsal, the night before the
opening with the cast still stumbling with entrances and exits, missed
cues, miss-spoken lines, bothersome props, most notably several plates
of sardines. Act Two is one month later at a Wednesday matinee
performance. In this act, the play is seen from backstage, providing a
view that reveals the deteriorating personal relationships among the
cast that have led to offstage shenanigans and onstage bedlam. In Act
Three, we see a performance near the end of the ten-week run when
personal friction has continued to increase, everyone is bored and
anxious to be done with the play. The performers attempt to cover up a
series of mishaps but only compound the problems and draw attention to
the bungling performance. Much of the comedy emerges from the subtle
variations in each version as off-stage chaos affects on-stage
performance. The slapstick in the latter two acts is hilarious and is
where the strength of this script lies. Director Dori Bryan picks the
best nine performers for each of these roles and infuses the farcical
elements to leave the audience in stitches. This excellent show can be
described in two words, frantic frenzy, as it progresses from a some
what normal British drawing room comedy into a madcap full out
farce. The magnificent two story turn able set is by Michael Duarte
which is a converted 16th Century farm that has been turned into a
modern dwelling for which renters are solicited in the script. (The
constantly broken glass window pane is made out of candy glass which
Michael created in his own kitchen.)
Dori is aided in her task by assistant director Steve Dooner who
dialect coached the cast for their topnotch British accents. The
colorful costumes are by Daniel Kozar while hard working stage manager
Brendon Auld and his crew turn the massive set with ease during the two
act intermission. (The audience loved watching this take place as the
set was piece together.) Lighting and technical director is Michael
Teixeira while Ed DiMarzio is the sound designer. The multitude of props
are by Gail Gilman who has to find a great deal of sardines, newspapers,
flowers as well as a cactus plant with huge thorns for the show. The
wild and crazy cast of the show do many pratfalls and comic bits that
are hilarious but since there are so many of them, I will try to
describe a few of them now. The womanizing director of "Nothing's On",
Lloyd, is Paul Warner. He sits in the audience during Act 1 doing a slow
burn that boils over with the "play within a play's" cast ineptness
until he finally yells the show is about "doors and sardines!" "It is a
fucking farce" when the cast keeps questioning him for the meaning of
things. Paul usually plays stern characters including Scrooge in
"Christmas Carol" and Mr. Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life", gets to do
more slapstick in the latter two acts. Lloyd's shenanigans with Brooke
and Poppy constantly being given flowers at the wrong time as well as a
bottle of whiskey which the some of the characters swig at their
annoyance of each other is one of the comic bits in the second act while
his entrance as the third robber in Act 3 is hysterical. Mary Beth
Murphy is extremely funny. The last time I saw her as the Reverend
Mother in "Nuncrackers", this time she plays the absent minded maid,
Dotty who has trouble remembering her lines, entrances and props in Act
1. ( She can't remember whether to take or leave the sardines, the
newspaper or to hang up the phone before leaving the stage.) She is
secretly in love with fellow actor, Garry Lejeune (the last name in
French means young) wonderfully played by the agile, Gavin Killea, a
recent graduate of Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT. He constantly
runs up and down the stairs with the suitcase and in the last scene
tumbles down the stairs, doing a back flip on landing on the floor,
manages to rise and pass out falling over the back of the sofa. Their
constant arguments in Act 2 are hysterical especially the different
sexual positions that Garry finds Dotty in with the other actors. He
tries to hit one of them with an axe and sticks a cactus plant up
Lloyd's butt to punish them. Garry also mispronounces the maid's last
name as Clackett, Clockett and so forth. The gorgeous brunette sexpot,
Brooke who Garry wants to make love to and takes to the supposedly empty
mansion is played by beautiful, blue-eyed Nicole Mayne who runs around
in a black bustiere throughout most of the show. She keeps losing a
contact lens and everyone is afraid to walk around so they won't step on
it. Brooke continues to say her lines in Act 3 correctly even when she
doesn't receive the right cue as everyone else is trying to cover for
the mistakes around them. What a hoot!
The married couple who owns the house and have pretended to be
vacationing in Spain to avoid paying taxes, Freddie and Belinda, are
excellently played by real life married couple Brian and Laura Gustafson
who recently got married last August. One of Brian's funniest bits is
running up the long flight of stairs with his trousers around his ankles
and not falling or tripping. The character also constantly gets nose
bleeds, clumsily handles props and keeps giving the flowers and whiskey
to the wrong person. (He also gets his face slapped violently several
times in Act 1 and has a wonderful pratfall on the sardines in Act 3.)
Laura's character knows all the backstage gossip including who is going
out with who, spilling the beans about secret affairs accidentally. She
constantly tries to stop an alcoholic actor to stop drinking by running
up to his dressing room, hiding the bottle of whiskey which seems to
always get back where he can find it. Laura as Belinda tries to cover
the other people's errors in the final scene finally forcing Lloyd to
explain things since is onstage as one of the three robbers. I recently
reviewed Brian and Laura in "The Wizard of Oz" last November) Greg
Barbon is a hoot as the 60 year old Selsdon Mowbray. The elderly man is
hard of hearing and is a lush who continually drinks but in the first
scene he breaks the window pane three times when he hears his cue even
though the other performers aren't ready for his entrance because they
are still onstage. (Greg recently played Christopher Wren in
"Mousetrap".) Katherine Joy is humorous as the shy, demure stage
manager, Poppy who is wide-eyed and frightened during the show due to
the director's constant yelling and the ineptness of "Nothing On's"
cast. Poppy is secretly in love with Lloyd and at one point nearly comes
to blows with Brooke in Act 2. Poppy keeps announcing the time to the
elderly matinee audience while her assistant does it during the
franticness of the scene. Act 2 ends with her blurting out she is
pregnant with Lloyd's child, inducing him to sit on the cactus plant
once again. Another comic performance is given by Sean Sullivan as Tim
Allgood, the techie who is also the understudy for several of the men.
In Act 1 he falls asleep behind the sofa as he runs around trying to fix
all the doorknobs on the set while in the next one he constantly makes
the wrong calls to the audience and continually buys flowers for Lloyd.
In the last act he comes onstage to play Freddie while clutching the
script page in his hand and quaking in his boots. So for a fantastic
evening of hilarious escapades in a brilliant presentation, be sure to
catch this excellent farce, "Noises Off" before time runs out.
NOISES OFF ( 20 to 29 March, 2009)
Bay Colony Productions, Orpheum Theatre, 1
School Street, Foxboro, MA
