Review: NOISES OFF at Clayton Community Theatre

How do you tell that your play is a success?   Not so easy if it’s a drama; you might detect a little silent sobbing.  But with a comedy?  That roar of laughter is a sure sign you’ve got a hit!  Well, the folks at the Clayton Community Theatre have a hit on their hands with their production of Michael Frayn’s madcap farce, Noises Off.

This play has had ‘em rolling in the aisles since it first opened in 1982.  The world pretty much agrees that it is the very best sex farce ever written.

When we enter the theatre we see a large living room with a staircase up to a balcony.  And it has eight doors and a French window.  Nine exits!  Well, this really must be a farce.  This scene is the stage-set for a farce-within-a-farce.  A touring company of actors are struggling to get through their final rehearsal, and it quickly becomes clear that they are desperately unready for opening night.  Dotty, who plays the housekeeper, is a woman of some years and her memory just ain't what it used to be.  All those words!  All that movement!  All those sardines!  She can keep one or another in her mind, but all three at once?  No way!   Then there's Brooke, the ingénue-bimbo who is always losing a contact lens—and her clothes.  There's Garry, who can never quite find the word to finish a sentence; he's rather like Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps in those P.G. Wodehouse stories.  Freddy is a little dim and keeps asking for his motivation, and any stress at all gives him a nosebleed.  Then there's old Selsdon as the Burglar; he's never there for an entrance.  It's not that Selsdon has a hearing problem:  he hears clearly, only what he hears is never quite what the speaker has said.  And he's forever in search of a bottle.  Only Belinda seems moderately sane and competent, but she's so outnumbered!   Altogether they're driving Lloyd, the director, and Poppy, the stage-manager out of their minds.

And poor Tim, assistant stage manager, is asleep on his feet after building the set all night.  But he's also an understudy and he just may have to go on.

Add to all this two romantic triangles, fiery jealousy, and a whole lot of sardines and you get an evening of merry madness.

Frayn gives us three different perspectives of these ill-fated players:  on-stage before opening night, backstage in mid-tour, and on-stage again at their final performance.  Yes, the entire set just rotates around.  In each scene the on-stage accidents proliferate and the back-stage emotional conflicts intensify.  In a houseful of characters trying not to be seen by each other there's a growing barrage of door-slamming exits.  There is  some quite dazzlingly choreographed business—almost juggling—as a whiskey bottle or a cactus or (of course) plates of sardines are swiftly, deftly snatched back and forth among the actors.  Once a fire-axe flits from hand to hand to hand in terrifying precision.  Once a telephone flies all 'round the stage.  There are pratfalls, there are trouser-falls and, like a froth of meringue on this comic chiffon pie, a beautiful young woman runs about the stage for most of the evening in her scanties. 

Tim Kelly directed The Play that Goes Wrong for the company two years ago.  That’s a show the technical complexities of which would totally intimidate most directors.  And now Kelly has taken the helm of another such farce—this time with a far better (but no less complex) script.  Again Kelly not only directs this challenging play, but he designed the set and was master-carpenter for its construction.  Wow!!

(I just realized that Kelly first directed Noises Off for this company fifteen years ago!  I guess he’ll keep at it till he gets it right.  This production seems very right to me.)

The cast is strong throughout. 

• Betsy Gasoske is bright and lively as Dotty, who is indeed a little “dotty”.  Her memory is scattered somewhere around here. 
• Joey Franks makes a charming Garry.  Unlike Dotty, Garry remembers his lines on stage.  But off-stage?  He just can’t ever finish a sentence.  He’s a mild puppy-dog—until jealousy arms him with a fire-axe.   Mr. Franks does an amazing head-first fall down two flights of stairs—and lives to tell the tale.
• Kristin Meyer (an appropriately stunning beauty) gives Brooke a wide-eyed empty-headed innocence.  Brooke’s acting experience consists of a few skin-care commercials.  While all the others are wildly ad-libbing to cover accidents Brooke recites exactly her lines from the script.
• C.J. Saenz gives us an adorable Freddie.  He’s truly sincere and modest when he repeatedly  interrupts rehearsal to ask about his “motivation”. 
• Analise Webb makes Belinda the voice of reason—ever doing her best to steady this rocking boat.
• Selsdon (who plays the burglar) is very charmingly, warmly played by Kurt Knoedelseder.
• Lloyd, the director, is played by Ken Clark—always a strong performer.  Lloyd is frustrated by the chaos at final rehearsal, and he’s eager to be off to direct a production of Richard III.  (It would be nice, too, if he could sort out his romantic entanglements.)
• Sarah Vallo is quick, petite, alert, and hassled as Poppy, the hard-working Stage Manager.
• Tim is the set designer, builder, fixer, general factotum—and understudy for the male roles.  Bradley Bliven makes us ache with empathy for this overstretched poor soul. 

Great praise must also go to Jack Kalan (fight choreographer), Jean Heckman (costumer), Jadienne Davidson (properties), Eric Wennlund (lighting designer), Miriam Whatley (stage manager) and Jacob Baxley (sound designer).