Noises Off

 

Playwright Michael Frayn created Noises Off in the early 1980s. It is a love letter and an inside joke to those of us familiar with the thrilling and unpredictable nature of the stage.

What is 'Noise Off' About?

Noises Off is a play within a play. It is about an ambitious director and his troupe of mediocre actors. The cast and crew are putting together a silly sex comedy titled, Nothing On - a single-set farce in which lovers frollic, doors slam, clothes are tossed away, and embarrassing hi-jinks ensue.

The three acts of Noises Off expose different phases of the disastrous show, Nothing On:

·                         Act One: On stage during dress rehearsal.

·                         Act Two: Backstage during a matinee performance.

·                         Act Three: On stage during a delightfully ruined performance.

Act One: The Dress Rehearsal

While the impatient director, Lloyd Dallas, trudges through the opening scene of Nothing On, the actors keep breaking character. Dottie keeps forgetting when to take her plate of sardines. Garry keeps challenging the stage directions in the script. Brooke is clueless about her fellow performers, and constantly loses her contact lens.

Act One lampoons the common problems which typically occur during the rehearsal process:

·                         Forgetting your lines.

·                         Second guessing your director.

·                         Misplacing your props.

·                         Missing your entrances.

·                         Falling in love with fellow cast members.

Yes, aside from from all of the physical comedy, the conflict of Noises Off is intensified when several of the theatre romances turn sour. Because of jealousy, double-crosses, and misunderstandings, tensions mount, and the performances of Nothing On go from bad to worse to wonderfully awful.

Act Two: Backstage Antics

The second act of Noises Off takes place entirely backstage. Traditionally, the entire set is rotated to reveal the behind the scenes events which unfold. It is fun to watch the same scene of Nothing On from a different perspective.

For anyone who has been backstage during a show - especially when something goes wrong - Act Two is bound to conjure a flood of hilarious memories. Despite the characters backstabbing one another, they somehow manage to get through their scene. But that's not the case with the final act of the play.

Act Three: When Everything Goes Wrong

In Act Three of Noises Off, the cast of Nothing On has been performing their show for nearly three months. They are seriously burnt out.

When Dottie makes a few mistakes during her opening scene, she just begins to ramble, making up lines from off the top of her head. The rest of the characters then make a series of mistakes: Garry can't improvise his way out of a paper bag. Brooke doesn't pay attention to the changes that are rapidly occurring -- she just keeps doing her lines, even when they aren't appropriate. And the veteran actor, Selsdon, can't keep away from booze. By the play's end, their show is a comical catastrophe -- and the audience is rolling in the aisles, loving every moment.

 

 

Characters of Noises Off

• Lloyd Dallas: The director of the play, Nothing On. Temperamental. One third of a Lloyd–Poppy–Brooke love triangle.

• Dotty Otley: A late-middle-aged actress. Forgetful. Dating Garry, though she attempts to make him jealous by meeting with Fred.

• Garry Lejeune: A stuttering actor, easily fired up, repeatedly tries to attack Fred after believing that Dotty was cheating on him with Fred. Speech affectations disappear onstage but are ever-present offstage. Always is stuttering and completing sentences with, "you know..." Dating Dotty.

• Frederick Fellows: An actor with a serious fear of violence and blood. Gets nosebleeds easily. Often questions the meaning of his lines and moves. Blames himself often for things going wrong.

• Belinda Blair: Cheerful and sensible, a reliable actress. She may have feelings for Fred.

• Poppy Norton-Taylor: Assistant Stage Manager. Emotional and over-sensitive, and envious of Brooke, whom she understudies. Carrying Lloyd's child. One-third of a Lloyd-Poppy-Brooke love triangle.

• Selsdon Mowbray: An elderly alcoholic man who hides his bottles onstage. If he is not in sight while rehearsing, the stage crew must find him before he passes out.

• Timothy Allgood: Stage Manager. Understudies Selsdon and Freddy.

• Brooke Ashton: A young inexperienced actress from London. It is suggested she is a porn star. Pays no attention to other performers, neither in performance nor backstage. She rarely takes stage direction, and continues performing regardless of any other action onstage. Is always losing her contact lenses. One-third of a Lloyd–Poppy–Brooke love triangle.

Characters of Nothing On

(This is the play within the play)

• Mrs. Clackett (Dotty): Housekeeper for the Brent's home in England. Hospitable, though slow.

• Roger (Garry): Real estate agent that is attempting to rent Flavia and Phillip's home, but uses it for his own personal benefit.

• Vicky (Brooke): Works for Inland Revenue and is trying to woo Roger.

• Phillip Brent (Fred): Lives out of the country with his wife Flavia to avoid paying taxes. He enters the country knowing that if he is caught by Inland Revenue, he will lose most of the year's income.

• Flavia Brent (Belinda): Phillip Brent's wife. She is dependable, though not one for household duties.

• Burglar (Selsdon): Old man in his seventies, breaking into the Brent's home.

Plot (various names of theatres and locations may be changed to reflect local spots in our theatre world)

In his plot for Noises Off, Frayn plays on the concept of a play within a play, in this case a dreadful sex comedy titled Nothing On—the type of play in which young girls run about in their underwear, old men drop their trousers, and many doors continually open and shut. Nothing On is set in "a delightful 16th-century posset mill"^[2][3] that has been converted to a modern dwelling for which renters are solicited; the fictional playwright is appropriately named Robin Housemonger. Each of the three acts ofNoises Off contains a performance of the first act of Nothing On.^[4]

Act One is set at the dress rehearsal, the night before opening at the (fictional^[5]) Grand Theatre in Weston-super-Mare, with the cast still fumbling with entrances and exits, missed cues, misspoken lines, and bothersome props, most notably several plates of sardines.

Act Two portrays a Wednesday matinee performance one month later^[6], at the (again fictional^[7]) Theatre Royal in Ashton-under-Lyne. In this act, the play is seen from backstage, providing a view that reveals the deteriorating personal relationships among the cast that have led to offstage shenanigans and onstage bedlam. Also, there appears to be no true resolution. The play simply falls into turmoil and disorder before the curtain is pulled.

In Act Three, we see a performance near the end of the ten-week run, at the (still fictional) Municipal Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees, when personal friction has continued to increase and everyone is bored and anxious to be done with the play. The actors attempt to cover up a series of mishaps but only compound the problems and draw attention to the bungling performance.

Much of the comedy emerges from the subtle variations in each version as off-stage chaos affects on-stage performance, with a great deal of slapstick. The contrast between players' on-stage and off-stage personalities is also a source of comic dissonance.