NOISES OFF AND NOTHING ON. Two-act comedy by Michael Frayn. Yvonne Copley directed. Set design Nigel Sweet. Lighting Fin McCormick. Presented by Milnerton Players. Milnerton Playhouse. Friday to Saturday until 12 December. SHEILA CHISHOLM reviews.
ANYONE thinking acting only means learning a bunch of lines, attending (occasional) rehearsals for movement direction from a director, then reproducing these in front of an audience will think again after seeing Noises Off and Nothing On. True, actors need to be word perfect. As are moves.
But continually running up and down a flight of stairs. Or jumping up them with trousers around ankles. Or falling down them – head first – because someone tied your shoe laces together. Or wandering around in sexy underwear, stockings and suspenders are not quite play-acting routine. Nor do actors normally shift sets around.
Yet all these (and more) happen in this farcical comedy.
Neither Noises Off nor Nothing On fit into Andrew Buckland’s physical theatre mode. However, actions are so physical an athlete’s fitness is required from the crew to get through two and a half hours of nonsense.
Inspiration for Noises Off came to the English playwright while watching, from the wings, his play The Two of Us. As he found this view so much funnier than from the front that, in 1982, he wrote Noises Off and Nothing On– a play within a play.
This duo takes the audience through a final dress rehearsal to discordant happenings backstage – while the show must go on.
The plot is a non-stop absurd whirligig, which to explain would only serve to bemuse readers.
However, love interest, love triangle, shenanigans, tensions between cast members and who’s who are clear through Yvonne Copley’s experienced hand as a director. As well as her nine accomplished hand-picked team members.
As with all farces, timing for the inevitable opening and shutting doors is all important. As is wandering in while someone wanders out. Matched with well enunciated speedy speech these keep momentum going (sometimes a little too energetically and exaggerated).
As Lloyd Dallas, director for Noises Off, James Skilton holds the link between the two plays.
A seasoned Thespian, Skilton has the rare ability to “hold” a play together without dominating, Skilton’s Lloyd is stellar.
Relative new-comer Mark Wilkes as Garry Lejeune is someone to watch. He is obviously comfortable on stage. He’s gifted as a comic turn without “over-doing-it.”
And as Dotty, Fiona Carling’s dithering over where to put a plate of sardines (rightly) drove director Lloyd dotty.
The strength of Frayn’s writing and Copley’s direction lies in Nothing On. Here we saw what chaos can reign back-stage when tensions rise between weary cast members. However we also saw their stoicism and ability to ad lib when performers go missing or miss cues.
The scene where a whiskey bottle kept switching hands kept one rivetted at the incredible juggling speed the company did this. A cameo role deserving mention is Johann van der Merwe.
As the dipsomaniac burglar Selsdon Mowbray his hard-of-hearing act, surprisingly, brought an element of calmness from the others’ “madness”.
However, to Nigel Sweet for his two-way set design must go the evening’s bouquet. Designed and constructed to switch from a renovated 18th century posset mill to a backstage setting he deserves a CATA nomination for Best Set.
At a time when daily news spews little else but misery, Noises Off and Nothing On provides jolly light relief to dejected spirits.
l Tickets from R80, bookings@ milnertonplayers.com or 082 2671061.