Let’s be honest. There is no better season for farce than the holidays at the end of the year. Ask any host who envisions the perfect holiday gathering only to see it unravel, thanks to clashing egos or the chaos of personal drama and fragile relationships.
Pioneer Theatre Company (PTC) has wisely chosen farce as its holiday season offering this year, by giving us a splendidly hysterical production of Michael Frayn’s classic Noises Off, directed by Shelley Butler. With genuinely intelligent, mutually supportive and cleverly resourceful actors who do not pull back from digging into the two-dimensional cartoon caricatures of their professional roles, this production snaps precisely in its farcical vibes.
Ten years after the play had its world premiere in 1982, Peter Bogdanovich adapted Frayn’s script for a film with some of the biggest screen stars of the time, but that version never matched up to the staged farce trappings. While Frayn thought the film version was decent, he said in an interview, “but it’s an inherently theatrical piece, and you have to feel some sense of that danger that exists with farce, where you feel things might go wrong.”
And, this is where the PTC production excels. Butler and the cast have ensured that everyone on stage and in the audience will feel the sense of that risk of danger which accompanies farce. Albert Bermel summarized this nicely in his 1982 book, Farce: A History from Aristophanes to Woody Allen. “Blood flows like wine in a heavy drama or melodrama,” he wrote. “In farce, the victim, who is apparently bloodless, looks dazed after a collision, then shakes his head, picks himself up, and goes off to meet the next collision. Farce shows us human bodies that are indestructible, sponges for punishment.” Every actor in this production delivers exceptionally well on these premises, notably in the second and third acts of the play.
The cast of Noises Off performs Robin Housemonger’s sex farce Nothing On, directed by the fictional character Lloyd Dallas (played by real-life actor Robert Mammana), which is set in the country home of Philip and Flavia Brent (featuring the fictional characters Frederick Fellowes and Belinda Blair, played respectively by Terence Archie and Sarah Marie Joyce). Noises Off opens with a rocky dress rehearsal of Nothing On, which is frustratingly interrupted by a host of issues. The show’s director, who obviously doesn’t have his heart in Nothing On, is willing to leave it in the hands of the stage manager Tim Allgood (played by Kilty Reidy) and assistant director Poppy Norton-Taylor (played by Avneet Kaur Sandhu).
At the opening of Nothing On’s story, the Brents are supposed to be on holiday in Spain. The manor’s housekeeper Mrs. Clackett (fictional actor Dotty Otley played by Linda Mugleston, who digs nicely into the Cockney accent) is looking forward to putting her feet up to watch the telly and enjoy a plate of sardines. However, the promise of enjoying an empty house vanishes immediately, when Roger Trampleman (fictional actor Garry LeJeune played by Rhett Guter), a housing agent from Squire, Squire, Hackham and Dudley, arrives, accompanied by Vicki, an Inland Revenue employee (fictional actor Brooke Ashton played by Olivia Kaufman). The reason for their visit is that the Brents have evaded paying up their tax arrears, but the agent and the government employee have more than official business on their mind.
Only Mrs. Clackett is aware of the many guests who otherwise think the home is empty, which, of course, leads to doors opening and closing repeatedly as everyone tries to avoid being caught. Joining the chaos is an unsuccessful burglar (fictional character Selsdon Mowbray played by David Manis).
We soon learn of a bevy of problems in the fictional cast of actors. Selsdon is a barely functioning alcoholic, which really juices things in the second act. Romantic relationships and love triangles are everywhere: Dotty and the considerably younger Garry are involved. The director Lloyd is involved with both Poppy and Brooke and neither woman is aware of the love triangle until they overhear the other actors chatting about it. Meanwhile, Freddie, who learns that his wife left him that morning, gets nosebleeds anytime he faces a violent or stressful situation. Of course, later on, his friendship with Dotty is misunderstood by everyone. Belinda seems to be the only sane one around.
The actual actors make it rain gold, especially in the second act when the debacle unfolds backstage, which is much more hilarious than the action happening in the front. One could muse about how ugly it might occasionally get in performing a show when it takes all of your emotional composure and physical stamina to still be standing at the end of it.
Naturally, the backstage problems of the second act leak out front in the final act, when the farce reaches its acme. This is not easy theatrical stuff, by any means. Many actors might thumb their noses at being portrayed like cardboard stereotypes but, as Butler explained in her director’s note, “they may stumble, forget their lines, and break down under pressure , but they continue forward, driven by the hope that the show must go on. It’s this spirit— the determination to rise again after every fall—that gives Noises Off its soul.”
Seasons Greetings, everyone. I do believe a plate of sardines is waiting.
The production continues through Dec. 20. For tickets and more information, see the Pioneer Theatre Company website.