If you’re a curmudgeon like me, you resist all slapstick comedy, and sit out there in the dark with your arms folded across your chest, daring the players to make you laugh. But laugh I did at Civic Theatre’s production of “Noises Off,” a classic farce by British playwright Michael Frayn.
Director Will Morris guides his ensemble through three screwball acts with unbridled abandon to tell the story of a small-town theatre group trying to perform a sex comedy called “Nothing On.” Each of our three acts is a look at the same first act of the play-within-a-play, beginning and ending from the audience perspective with the second act done from “backstage.” The title refers to off-stage noise that is intended for the audience to hear – or not. If all this sounds confusing, you’re right.
To portray the chaos, Morris assembled nine actors who convincingly prove that comedy truly is hard. Between running from slamming door to stuck door, running up and down stairs, running across the stage, and tripping over themselves and everything else, the troupe leaves the audience exhausted from both the watching and the laughing.
If you don’t happen to care for farce, slapstick, and zany British comedy, this is not the production for you. As a friend recently confided, this play is “like a pie-throwing scene that never runs out of shaving cream.” Or, as the gentleman sitting behind me observed, “It’s like watching a three-ring circus.”
But broad comedy was exactly what Civic’s spirited opening night crowd was there for. They laughed so hysterically that it took the kind of skill and timing only seasoned actors can muster so as not to let the audience step on their lines.
Rebecca Engborg’s hilarious Dotty, the addled housekeeper who can’t keep anything organized, is worth the ticket price. Her absent-minded wandering through the household while everyone else is losing their minds is award-worthy. But her colleagues’ stock characters are not far behind.
Kristin Stachina is self-absorbed and scantily clad Brooke (of course!) who is trying to tryst with Garry (Chris Egging) while Samantha Beedle and Todd Rizzuto are a married couple also trying to tryst, all in a country house they each think is empty. Stephen Molloy is the play’s director who tries with no success to keep the farce’s actors focused while quietly going nuts himself. He is assisted by Amanda Murphy as the highly emotional stage manager and Doug Ace as the beleaguered handyman and stand-in for whoever forgets a cue.
And finally, there is the old sot Selsden, wonderfully played by Frank Ruscitti, a cat burglar who is always too drunk to remember his cues or lines. One wonders what nightmares playwright Frayn has endured to invent such inept thespians.
Joshua Deruosi’s sets are also part of the troupe. Before Act 2, we watch, fascinated, as the actors rotate three gigantic parts that transform the set from a balconied living room to the skeletal structure behind the sets and back again. The technical and backstage crew deserve a round of applause for flawless support of a complicated production. It can’t be easy to make things look so clumsy. As for the sex, there isn’t any but not for the characters’ lack of trying.
The show could be improved a bit by toning down Act 1 to make more of a contrast with the chaotic Acts 2 and 3. The actors’ volume and pitch sometimes obscured their dialog and left us poking our partner in the ribs asking, “What’d he say'” As my new friend sitting behind me said, “I don’t see how they can scream so loud.”
“Noises Off” provides some welcome craziness to distract us from the cold nights and confusing times. Craziness like this can help you forget your cares, at least for awhile, and may even cure you from ever wanting to become involved in community theatre. “Noises Off” runs Thursdays through Sundays until Feb. 24 at Civic Theatre, 527 N. 19th St., Allentown. For tickets, call 610-432-8943. #