Review: NOISES OFF at The Segal Centre

Noises Off is a show that has kept audiences rolling in the aisles for more than 30 years.

Written by English playwright Michael Frayn in 1982, it's heartily deserving of the "classic comedy" status and its reputation for delighting audiences at home and abroad.

With Noises Off, timing is everything. The book is great, and all that remains is to cast a stellar group of actors and sure up the technical elements. This is where the Segal Centre's production shines.

The attention to detail by director Jacob Tierney serves to milk every last laugh out of an already hilarious script. The physical comedy, the slapstick, and the melodrama blends together in this production as it races towards its climax.

The show tells the story of a struggling theatre troupe rehearsing, performing, and ultimately bombing a play-within-a-play onstage.

The self-absorbed and self-destructive actors allow things to go further and further awry as tensions rise to a boiling point within the cast. The first section follows the rehearsal process while the next provides a rare look behind the scenes as the entire set rotates 180 degrees and the audience gets to watch the next sequences "from backstage."

The final section acts as the culmination for the bitter interpersonal relationships that have been brewing from the start, as the players back-stab, flub, stumble and flail through the final 'performance.'

The cast is a great ensemble, made up of an excellent cohesive group of actors who support each other as much as their counterpart characters seek to undermine one another.

The long-suffering director, played by David Julian Hirsh, has been simultaneously romancing his leading lady and his stage manager and, like in any good farce, it repeatedly blows up in his face.

Amanda Lisman, who plays empty-headed actress Brooke, is a highlight. Her energy and commitment as she incompetently wanders around clad only in lingerie, meticulously following her designated lines and blocking even as the whole show crumbles around makes for a laugh-out-loud performance.

Finally Martha Burns as Dotty provides a wry, subtle humour to a show that relies on spit-takes, tumbles and gags. Burns is tremendously fun to watch and acts as a kind of guiding light through which the audience can follow the course of the show, and its unravelling.

The simple set and costume design channel the high realism of the play. Anyone who's beem involved in theatre before will recognize the cheap looking furniture, the rickety backstage staircase and iconic masking tape-lined props table.

The play finds its strength in the juxtaposition of clever script and physical farce-inspired antics. It's a play that leaves no seed of a joke untended, and no loose end un-tugged.

The Segal Centre's production is immensely funny and charming, at times causing dialogue to be drowned out by the crowd's laughter.

Noises Off is playing until February 19 with tickets starting at $51.

 

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