Noises Off: A Playful Romp into the Sometimes Chaotic World of Theatre

Noises Off: A Playful Romp into the Sometimes Chaotic World of Theatre

By Janani Pattabi

From February 16 to February 19, Central’s Drama department performed their first straight play of the year, Noises Off. The farce about a “play within a play,” was originally set to be performed by the department in 2020, but was rescheduled to this year due to the pandemic. Rolling out on the heels of Matilda, Noises Off was quick-paced, witty, and chaotic in the best ways. 

Compared to the fun and joyous productions in the years prior, the humor of Noises Off primarily comes from jabs made at the character’s expense. The audience is meant to laugh at the characters’ misfortune, as many of them are written to be unlikeable or incompetent. Take for instance the cranky and arrogant director Lloyd Dallas played by Wade Schachtt, or the dim-witted actor Frederick (Freddie) Fellowes played by Eric Lim. The mean-spirited humor was contagious as audience members couldn’t help but chuckle at Lloyd and Dotty’s (Bess Chamely) snappy back-and-forth, Brooke (Ellis Mansfield) mindlessly admiring herself in the TV screen when the scene wasn’t being rehearsed, and senile Selsdon (Jordan Rinkenburger) struggling to keep his footing in reality. The actors all “went there” with their characters and weren’t afraid to make a fool of themselves onstage for the enjoyment of the crowd, making the show hysterical from start to finish.

Timing and buildup were key in ensuring that the jokes landed. According to Alex Curry, who played stage manager Poppy Norton-Taylor, play previews allowed the cast to get a feel for how to get more laughs. “When we’re just acting it out, you don’t really know at what points the audience is going to laugh, so play previews helped us out.” she explained. “Ms. Wilson talked to us about how the punchline needs to be set up to be able to make the audience laugh, so we focused on how do you deliver the jokes so that the audience can understand and say ‘Oh that was funny.’” Curry, whose first straight play was Noises Off, talked about the process of connecting to Poppy. “I’m supposed to be the stage manager and I talked to the techies and Angela [who is] the stage manager for our production.” she said. “Working with some of the other tech and trying to get a feel of how frantic they are backstage was a big part of how I carried out Poppy.”

Speaking of tech, the show featured a massive rotating set that was turned back and forth between scenes. When I first heard that the show was going to have a rotating set, I had no context for what the show was about and was eager to see how it would be utilized. I think the set was perfect in showing the transition from the dress rehearsal of the first act, backstage during opening night of the second act, and the last leg of the show in the third act. I enjoyed that the tech kids rotating the set between acts was set to “Flight of the Bumblebee” and treated as part of the show. My favorite staging moment was Dotty and Garry arguing through the window in the center of the set while everyone “backstage” dissolves into chaos in Act II. Charlotte Heads, a Central sophomore who did tech for the show, describes the experience building the set. “It was bizarre, there were times when it was stressful,” she explained. “But everyone divvied up the work. We would come together to spin the set to check if it was working and that was so fun.” 

Overall the show was a light-hearted and enjoyable way to spend an evening and kept the audience laughing from start to finish. Act II was a highlight for many people due to its high-energy and chaotic nature and all the set-ups from Act I got to play out. “I think Act II has to be my favorite part of the show,” Curry said. “It’s just so chaotic and so crazy that everybody’s like ‘What is going on?’ but it’s hilarious” Central student Sarah Jacobson, who saw the show Saturday night, also agreed that “the second act was very funny.” When asked how she felt about the show she said that she “thought it was done really well overall.”