Ash Ricardo, Tracy Mann, Josh McConville, Alan Dukes. Image by Brett Boardman.
Veteran writer Michael Frayn may appear formidable intellectually, with his interest in philosophy and science, his plays Copenhagen and Democracy, his many novels and articles, his reputation as Britain’s finest translator of Chekhov. So what was he doing back in 1982 delivering a totally slapstick farce, Noises Off, about a second-rate British troupe of actors touring the regions with a third-rate sex romp called Nothing On?
The thread, of course, through all Frayn’s work – including with Chekhov – is his fascination in comedy and how it works. Noises Off is also a love letter to the theatre. Even if, like me, you cringe sometimes at silly slapstick, Frayn’s thespian affection here is joyous, just as his comic mastery is unbeatable.
The format is the play within a play, as the curtain rises on an under-rehearsed cast tripping over themselves during the final rehearsal of Nothing On. We’re in an old English manor house with an absurd number of doors and a parade of madly dressed, oversexed characters from the 1970s (in costumes by Julie Lynch).
Everybody loses themselves and various objects without ever quite bumping into each on the stairs. Juggling plates of sardines and other props with aplomb, is Genevieve Lemon, superb as the provincial actress, Dotty, playing buxom housekeeper, Mrs Clackett. An astonishingly agile Josh McConville plays Garry playing the local real estate agent, who arrives for a bit of upstairs nooky with the pea-brained Vicki. Ash Ricardo plays Brooke playing Vicki. She’s a leggy broad with a myopic view of herself, interrupted only by regular moments when the cast must join the scramble for her lost contact lense.
Meanwhile, arriving in secret from Spain is the house-owner, a playwright, and his wife, trying to avoid Internal Revenue. Alan Dukes is suitably pompous and doubting as the bruised actor playing this role while, as the actress playing his wife, Tracy Mann is nicely upbeat and efficient.
Wandering through this chaotic rehearsal is Tim (Lindsay Farris) who is the backstage mechanic and understudy to everybody; old Selsdon (Ron Haddrick, now 85!) who, when not too intoxicated, plays a burglar; and the exasperated director (Marcus Graham) who somehow keeps the production afloat while having an affair with Brooke and the depressive, young stage manager (Danielle King). And that’s the first act!
Then the magnificent realistic set by Mark Thompson revolves and, with the tour now one month on, now at Ashton-under-Lynne, we see the same bad play but from backstage. The various loves and tensions between the cast are now unbearable, even murderous. They are vigorously played out as Nothing On falteringly proceeds onstage.
Here satirist-turned-director, Jonathan Biggins, turns genius with perfectly timed business leaping between onstage and off, between these flawed actors and their mad characters. As silly as it was, I roared with laughter.
By the last act, Nothing On has limped on into Stockton-on-Tees and we see the show again, from frontstage. But with cues and lines long lost, entrances missed and actors sabotaged, Nothing On is barely recognisable.
The actors improvise desperately trying to reach the last line. It is perhaps the one absurdist, philosophical moment – when and how can we steer our lives back to the proper end? The wit may flag a little in this third retelling but this is a gloriously retro production of a cut-diamond classic of comedy.
Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars
Noises Off
Sydney Theatre Company
By Michael Frayn
Director Jonathan Biggins
Set Designer Mark Thompson
Costume Designer Julie Lynch
Lighting Designer Nigel Levings
Sound Designer Kingsley Reeve
Cast: Alan Dukes, Lindsay Farris, Marcus Graham, Ron Haddrick, Danielle King, Genevieve Lemon, Tracy Mann, Josh McConville, Ash Ricardo
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
www.sydneytheatre.com.au
17 February – 5 April
