Audience in Stitches Over "Noises Off!"

If you’ve never seen this play before, hold on to your hats, sit up close and pay attention.

Noises Off!, which opened last weekend at , has the potential to be “The funniest farce ever written,” as the New York Post said. But you have to be quick on your feet and follow along. 

, who plays Lloyd Dallas the director, says the most challenging part of Noises Off! is, in fact, keeping track of all the dialogue. 

"This play requires precise timing, both in line delivery and physical business. Also, a lot of dialogue repeats itself, so being sure where you are in the script is essential!" he said in an e-mail. 

The three-act play within a play is a slapstick comedy that follows the cast of "Nothing On." The first act is a dress rehearsal of "Nothing On," when the audience gets a small taste of what the cast is like. They are introduced to the likes of Frederick (John Manfredi) who plays Philip in “Nothing On,” and is afraid of violence and breaks into a nose bleed whenever he sees it. He is also squeamish of blood. Lloyd as director is settled into the rows of the theater, shouting directions. Dottie (Morgan Lewis) who plays the frumpy Mrs. Clackett is almost always with a plate of sardines. Then there’s the scantily-clad Brook (Nicole Rodrigues) who always loses her contact lenses and doesn’t miss her lines, even when the play is up in shambles.

The set is made of two floors and six doors—all of which are utilized—with entrances and exits on and off stage precisely timed. Just as one character shuts one door, another character comes through another. Or breaks in through a window.

Act II is done backwards: the set is turned around and the audience gets to witness more laugh out loud moments as the cast of “Nothing On” continues to perform a scene on the other side. We see glances of that play as some of the doors open and close, and hear the dialogue. However, the actors and actresses running around “backstage” are almost completely silent and the noises are quite literally off. This was definitely the most difficult act to follow, but also the most funny to witness. There’s a bit with a hatchet, a bottle of whiskey and two sheets tied together. 

By Act III, the stage is turned back to the front and the cast of “Nothing On” is obviously not as into it we saw in Act I. Character personalities are more apparent: love triangles, an alcoholic older actor, a stressed-out director and a timid assistant stage manager.

I’ve seen many renditions of this play, yet the focus of this production becomes not so much on the plot of the play(s), but the interactions between characters. By Act II, I had given up on trying to follow who was involved with whom, why one character was mad at another and focused on what was before me: laughing at the play’s ridiculousness.

Especially between acts when the stage is being moved and it is intermission, I wasn’t sure if it was part of the play when characters would come out, or if they were off duty. The lines between reality and sub-reality are blurred: Is this a part of Noises Off? "Nothing On"? Or reality? When everything seems to go so very catastrophically wrong, the audience no doubt questions if the actors really did mess up.

But the bottom line remains that you are still laughing, still enjoying yourself, and NDNU once again delivers. 

Noises Off! will run April 15-16 at 7:30 p.m. and April 17 at 2 p.m. at the Notre Dame de Namur Theatre.

Tickets are $10 general. For tickets and more information, call (650) 508-3456 or e-mail boxoffice@ndnu.edu.