This was a huge hit on Broadway when it first played. Unfortunately, I missed it then -- caught it in revival with Jane Curtin playing the star ... a fading star from the British stage who is sleeping with every man she can find, but can't remember her lines. The show is touring all the small towns, and every show finds new and worse conditions among the actors.
Ben Brantley:
That same level of confidence is not immediately apparent when the curtain rises on the recast ''Noises Off,'' which portrays the personal and professional mishaps of an English road company that is presenting a tittering sex farce called ''Nothing On.'' There's still a sense that many of these performers have yet to settle thoroughly into their characters' skins. And it isn't always possible to distinguish between the overblown comic signaling of their onstage and offstage personae.
But there comes a moment -- and mercifully, it comes early -- when you realize that whatever its shortcomings, this cast is going to deliver what you need it to deliver. That's when the troupe's dimwitted, dim-sighted ingénue (Kali Rocha in Ms. Finneran's role) first loses a contact lens during the limbo hours of a long technical rehearsal.
Suddenly, everyone on stage snaps into careful, convoluted postures that bring to mind the party game Twister. It's a grotesque and familiar sight, a wonderfully exaggerated rendering of how the smallest of everyday accidents can turn a group of sane-looking adults into something like the Keystone Kops.
From that moment you trust in this company's ability to dance the dance of desperation, which is the essential dynamic of ''Noises Off.'' Only a few of the performers shine in quieter moments, in which the humor comes from smaller quirks of character. On the other hand, ''Noises Off'' is not what you would call a quiet play.
As Dotty, the faded leading lady (and bankroller) of ''Nothing On,'' Ms. Curtin sheds her customary sharp edges for a likable air of hazy preoccupation. She doesn't pull off Dotty's diva side, something at which Ms. LuPone was a natural. But unlike Ms. LuPone, Ms. Curtin fits obligingly and efficiently into the necessary machinery of the ensemble. She never seems happier than when Dotty becomes the prima ballerina in the slapstick ballet of the second and third acts.
http://theater.nytimes.com/...
So I've seen it twice -- once in the Jane Curtin version of the revival, and once here in PA, where almost all of the actors were Equity and their performances were brilliant. That show was one where a friend of mine said he wanted to either see a play or a concert, and when he showed me the playlist, I said You must see Noises Off.
He laughed hysterically through the whole thing.
Before the show, he did ask what it's about.
"Doors and sardines," I replied.
That is not much of an answer. But it's true: Noises Off/Nothing On is ALL about doors and sardines, in the best farce manner.
Of course, there's a lot more happening: people with their clothes off, people looking for their clothes to put on, mistaken identities (ok, I made that up) -- it's a farce!
Damn, but I wish I could write as well as Michael Frayn.
One actor's view of the show: