Noises Off
Michael Frayn
Palo Alto Players
William Rhea, Brandon Silberstein & Kimberly Mohne Hill
“Doors and sardines. Getting on, getting off. Getting the sardines on, getting the sardines off. That’s farce. That’s the theatre. That’s life.”
Perhaps no line better summarizes the challenge and the fun potential of both the fictional director and the actual stage director of Palo Alto Players’ latest opening, Michael Frayn’s much-loved, oft-produced Noises Off. No matter how many times I personally have seen this 1982-premiering farce that explodes the boundaries of how wild and outlandish a staged comedy can go, I still find myself in tears guffawing when yet another sardine or actor flies through the air.
A play within a play where actors’ roles in one play that is being rehearsed and performed mirror and accentuate their ‘real life’ quirks and bad sides as seen in the other play – both being performed on andbackstage – is the proven formula for one of the best farces ever to hit the stage since Shakespeare. Noises Off is slapstick on steroids, with every trick in the book (trips, slips, slides, and tumbles) tried at least once to command a chuckle.
Noises Off with its seven doors opening and shutting in split-second sequences dozens of times is either a director’s dream or nightmare. For Palo Alto Players’ director, Linda Piccone, it is clear very quickly that she has had the time of her life orchestrating the chaos of purposeful physical mishaps, flubbed and forgotten lines, and missed entrances and exits of both actors and props.
Please continue to Talkin’Broadway for the rest of my review.
Rating: 4 E
Noises Off continues through February 2, 2025, in in a two-hour, thirty-minute (two intermissions1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA. Tickets are available online at www.paplayers.org or by calling the Box Office at 650-329-0891.
Photo Credit: Scott Lasky
