Legend has it that playwright Michael Frayn was watching a 1970 performance of his farce The Two of Us when 鈥� like a gift from the Muses 鈥� the idea for one of theatre鈥檚 legendary comedies came to him.
As he observed the action in the wings, it occurred to Frayn that what was happening backstage was more amusing than the onstage hijinks. The eventual result, Noises Off, was a critical and box-office hit in 1982, ultimately scooping three Tony awards.
To cap its 90th season, Langham Court Theatre has hatched a credible version of Noises Off, earning cheers and a standing ovation at its opening on Thursday night. While not every joke fired, there was sufficient verbal and physical fuel to prime the engine of Frayne鈥檚 wonderful comedy concoction.
Many kudos go to Don Keith, who directed this complex play with clarity, and Chris Clarke, who designed a superior set.
The tradition of comedies about backstage shenanigans is long. It includes Alan Ayckbourn鈥檚 A Chorus of Disapproval (mounted by Langham Court Theatre last season), David French鈥檚 Jitters and the musical A Chorus Line.
In Noises Off (the title is a theatre term referring to noises coming from offstage) a third-rate theatre troupe mounts a typical British sex farce. This play-within-a-play is the usual schlock with slamming doors, double entendres and a pretty girl running around in her corset.
Noises Off begins at midnight at the tail-end of a horrendously long technical rehearsal. Director Lloyd (Alan Penty) is exasperated by Dotty (Jan Streader) who, in the play-within-a-play, takes the role of a jolly maid.
Dotty, getting on in age, is confused by such props as telephone receivers and platefuls of sardines. Indeed, the entire cast is woefully inept. It includes inarticulate Garry (Andrew Weitzel), sex-pot Brooke (Tess Kotchonoski), nosebleed-prone Freddy (Jeff Kerrie), peacemaker Belinda (Kristen Pickup) and whiskey-swilling Selsdon (Toshik Bukowiecki).
Act II portrays opening night. The twist is that we view it from behind the set. By now, the rot has set in: there are fire-axe fights, booby traps and drunken miscues. In the last act, we visit the show on the final leg of its run. The production has deteriorated into pure bedlam 鈥� some performers are tipsy, others have simply given up and the remainder struggle to salvage a foundering theatrical Titanic.
Plays like this pose a special challenge for community theatre. One obstacle in Noises Off is the need for performers to show a clearly delineated difference between naturalistic off-stage dialogue and 鈥渂ad acting鈥� displayed in the play-within-a-play. In this production, some actors succeeded more at this than others.
A lesser hurdle for Canadian performers are the English accents in this play, set in Britain. The cast has varying levels of success in achieving this.
That said, the Langham crew wins the steeple-chase overall. It鈥檚 difficult enough staging any farce, a challenging form in itself. This one ups the quotient to the power of 10.
Frayn鈥檚 script is highly demanding 鈥� a byzantine maze of crisscrossing plot elements (who鈥檚 shagging who?), overlapping dialogue and elaborate physical hijinks. Aside from a slight fuzziness in Act II, everything worked rather well, particularly the riotous rock-鈥檈m-sock-鈥檈m finale.
Memorable sequences included Weitzel鈥檚 slo-mo tumble down a staircase, complete with somersaults, Penty鈥檚 high-octane meltdowns, risible understudy substitutions and Streader鈥檚 Coronation-Street-style delivery as the maid.
At first, Kotchonoski鈥檚 exaggeratedly Betty Boop delivery grated; however, her character grows on you and the actor displays a real comedic knack.
Ditto for Jon Hunwick, a promising young performer who had several good moments (facial expressions, timing) as inept stagehand Tim.
Especially impressive is the well-constructed set of a Tudor-style interior, which revolves for Act II. It鈥檚 highly detailed, beautifully functional and unusually well done.
Noises Off continues at Langham Court Theatre to June 22.
