You had him pegged as a “Hamlet” guy, did you? Not so fast, buster.
In his program notes for “Noises Off,” Georgia Shakespeare Producing Artistic Director Richard Garner outs himself as a closeted comedy lover. That’s hardly news to anyone who’s been paying attention to his Oglethorpe University theater, where Joe Orton’s black comedies have played side-by-side with the Bard’s giddy romps.
Only now Garner is attempting to land the big one — Michael Frayn’s raucous send-up of the backstage peccadilloes of a third-rate English road company. With “Noises Off,” Frayn wickedly holds a mirror up to the theater, where the best drama often happens behind the curtain, where grandiose egos falter and flop, on lost lines, missed cues, romantic blow-ups and slippery sardines.
If you have never seen this farce-within-a-farce, in which director Lloyd Dallas (Chris Kayser) takes his low-brow bedroom comedy “Nothing On” on a tour of the provinces, it may take you a second to adjust to Frayn’s conceit. We get to see his acting company unravel in three acts. It's the same material with wildly differing variations: a frayed late-night rehearsal before the official opening; a backstage meltdown a few weeks later; and a final public humiliation in which the accumulated stress and bad behavior of the group threatens to bring the show to a halt. It’s difficult enough for these frazzled thesps to deal with the slamming doors, ringing telephones and lost trousers written into the script. Add lots of unscripted booze, a love triangle or two, a heaping pour of jealousy and revenge, and you get deliciously fizzy cocktail of slapstick and booby traps.
As directed by Garner, the ensemble has a grand time with the physical comedy and scenery mastication. There are some wonderful performances here, but somewhere in the bedlam, the story — such as it is — gets lost. I’ve never seen such comedic haywire, never seen an actor take a fall like Joe Knezevich (as the enraged Garry Lejeune) does. But the carnage is born of the various relationships within this fictitious thespian troupe, and Garner’s group is in such a hurry to get on with the next pratfall that it’s easy for an audience member to miss crucial connections. Georgia Shakes has already opened and closed three productions this summer; so it’s understandable if time and energy is a little short. But this zany comedy requires the same care with accents and language as any other endeavor.
That said, Kayser may be the best Lloyd Dallas I’ve ever seen. Kayser nails the smug, mealy-mouthed and callous character, and sounds just like a member of the British middle class. Where Knezevich, Mark Cabus (the fainting Frederick Fellowes) and Carolyn Cook (the aptly named Dotty Otley) are all quite good, Tess Malis Kincaid is simply superb as the grand Belinda Blair, who makes her entrance in a turquoise-and-chartreuse number and tries to mend wounds and hold the group together. Ann Marie Gideon makes for a delightful Brooke Ashton, the clueless bimbo who spends most of her time in little more than bra and underwear.
Some other roles could use a little more panache, however: Scott Warren as Timothy Allgood (yes, I saw T.R. Knight do this part on Broadway, and I’m spoiled); Allan Edwards as the tottering old drunk Selsdon Mowbray; and Caitlin McWethy (as the walking Kleenex box that is Poppy Norton-Taylor). On the design side, Kat Conley contributes a by-the-books country dump with a garden window that lacks perspective and causes a little glare; Doug Koertge stitches playful costumes to suit this gallery of outsize personalities. All in all, a fun but somewhat uneven show.
Theater review
“Noises Off”
Grade: B –
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays. 2 p.m. Aug. 13. Through Aug. 14. $15-$50. Georgia Shakespeare, Oglethorpe University, 4484 Peachtree Road N.E., Atlanta 404-504-1473; gashakespeare.org
Bottom line: Nothing delicate about this noisy romp.
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