Ga. Shakespeare vets have own backstage tales to tell

There's lots of door slamming and destructive antics in Georgia Shakespeare's production of Michael Frayn’s "Noises Off," a British farce about backstage life in the theater that's endowed with an element of truth.

The play goes behind the curtain of a mediocre touring company that's attempting to stage the abysmal bedroom farce “Nothing On” and makes a holy mess of it. In holding a fun-house mirror up to the world of theater, Frayn delivers a comedy of dropped trousers, missed cues, flowing booze and general off-stage chaos that wreaks havoc on the play-within-the-play.

Though Frayn's script plays the hijinks in high pitch, anyone who's worked in theater has a tale or two to tell about some similar disaster. In the spirit of "Nothing On," we asked two "Noises Off" stars and their director to share their tales of theatrical woe.

Chris Kayser (plays "Nothing On" director Lloyd Dallas)

• "In the 1992 Alliance Theatre production of 'A Christmas Carol,' when Scrooge [played by Roger Forbes] returned from his office to his house, a huge wagon [a large set element mounted on platforms that rolls to facilitate a set change] containing his bedroom moved downstage. It had a house facade on it containing lots of electrics [Marley's face, chase lights, etc.].

"As Scrooge goes in, four cables were supposed to come down and lift it up into the fly space. One day one of the corner cables failed to attach and when the flat started up, it began to curl and crumble under its own weight — very slowly and loudly.

"When the second cable paused, then broke, we knew it was all over. It took a relatively long time for the whole thing to come down, with showers of sparks and splintering wood. In the end there was nothing but a smoking pile of rubble on the stage. We took an intermission and stagehands came out with snow shovels and trash cans and cleaned up the mess.

"When Roger came out to restart the show, he very coolly turned to the audience and said, ‘As I was saying ...'

Loud laughter and applause. The show goes on."

• "Joe Knezevich and I were doing a French play on tour in Buffalo, N.Y., 'Voir un Ami Pleurer' ('To See a Friend Cry'). In this play Joe has a long monologue where he berates the audience, asking if they're ready to face the end of the world and their own deaths. I step out from the wings and say, 'Sorry, sir, but this is the end of the world and you are going to die.' Then I shoot him twice with a blank pistol.

"I checked the pistol before every show. It always worked. But of course, last show, last day of the tour, it doesn’t fire — twice.

"We look at each other and finally I think to derisively say, ‘I hope you don’t have a heart attack!'

"He grabs his chest and falls over, dead. The show goes on."

Tess Malis Kincaid (plays "Nothing On" actress Belinda Blair)

• "I was doing 'Kimberly Akimbo' at Actor's Express in 2006. In one scene my daughter [played by Mary Lynn Owen] was supposed to be explaining to me a Dungeons and Dragons-type game she played and was introducing me to the scary characters from a reference book.

"When the moment came, the bookmark marking the page with the scary picture had fallen out, so instead she turns the book around to me and shows me a beautiful fairy. My reaction was supposed to be one of horror. But instead, I burst into laughter and said, 'That's a manticore?'

"I don’t think the audience even knew, but we were all in stitches."

• "When I worked with North Carolina Shakespeare Festival in the late '90s, we were doing a production of 'Twelfth Night.' The actor playing Aguecheek had a climbing monkey toy [when you pulled the rope vertically on both ends the monkey would climb the rope, then slide down] that he used as a prop. In the last scene, he comes forward stage center for his final moment, lifts his climbing monkey toy ... it doesn't work.

"In a pathetic voice he proclaims, 'It broke.'

"The entire cast, including my ‘Noises Off' comrade Allan Edwards, got so tickled we had to turn upstage, our backs shaking with laughter toward the audience, which also cracked up.

"It took a while before we could get back on track."

Richard Garner ("Noises Off" director)

• "In 2000, I did something I almost never do – act in a production at Georgia Shakespeare. The show was 'Twelfth Night' and I went completely blank on a line.

"Chris Kayser tried to give me some help, but I thought the line would come to me so I waved him off.

"And then: Nothing. No line. Just me on stage trying desperately to get back on track in front of about 300 people.

"Lesson learned: When Chris Kayser offers a helping hand on stage, take it. Otherwise, the result is pretty embarrassing."

Onstage