NOISES OFF. To 21 March.

Mold/Swansea.

NOISES OFF
by Michael Frayn.

Clwyd Theatre Cymru (Anthony Hopkins Theatre) To 14 March.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm; Mat Sat 2.30pm.
Audio-described 12 March.
Captioned 7 March 2.30pm.
Talkback: 5, 12 March.

TICKETS: 0845 330 3565.
www.clwyd-theatr-cymru.co.uk

then Grand Theatre Swansea 18-21 March 2009.
7.30pm Mat Sat 2pm.
Captioned 21 March 2pm.
TICKETS: 01792 475715.
www.swanseagrand.co.uk

Runs 2hr 25min One interval.
Review: Stoon Barar 27 February 2009.

A perfect script requires sympathetic characterization and deftness of touch.
Staging Noises Off demands a surefooted approach. The script is so laden with delights that only the gentlest milking is required to achieve laughs by the bucketful. Excess is to be avoided.

Terry Hand’s version of Michael Frayn’s 1982 comic masterpiece achieves a couple of pleasing brushstrokes but misses far too many subtleties. Consequently, it is merely mildly amusing.

This three-act play concerns the staging of an old-style touring farce, the actors playing members of its cast. We see the dress rehearsal, then a performance from backstage, and finally an audience view of the play towards the end of its run. Like a super-deluxe theatrical Cluedo, the cast of nine cover the expected stereotypes, together with director, stage manager and technician. They’re all slightly unhinged to start with, and their gradual descent into mayhem is the key to the play. Here, we’re denied this pleasure as they’re way too neurotic at first. So we view them without sympathy; by the end we’re happy to see them emotionally straight-jacketed.

Timing is essential: doors must open/close simultaneously. Here there’s a slight time lag. Physical movement must be dramatic but not slapstick, as large portions are (the Director curling in despair on a sofa, thumb-in-mouth, definitely over-eggs the pudding). Over-stressed Stage Manager Polly should walk the fragile line between hope and despair; here she has a permanent grimace while her bouncy walk brings to mind a teletubby.

Though it’s an ensemble piece, all bar one of the performances are over the top. The exception is Emily Pithon as Belinda Blair, perpetually cheerful regardless of the situation. But even she’s reduced to excess by the third act – crawling onto the stage in an embarrassing fashion that suggests she’s negotiating the barbed wire of no-man’s land. In act two, the amplified voices of the actors ‘onstage’ that we hear ‘backstage’ are too loud and make it impossible to concentrate on happenings backstage.

Though the touring play-within-the-play is a farce, Noises Off itself is not. The cast must seriously act being in a farce. Here, it feels we’re merely watching a farce about a farce.

Dotty Otley: Shirley King.
Lloyd Dallas: Philip Bretherton.
Garry Lejune: Steven Elliott.
Brooke Ashton: Hedydd Dylan.
Polly Norton-Taylor: Louise Collins.
Frederick Fellows: Wayne Cater.
Belinda Blair: Emily Pithon.
Tim Allgood: Simon Nehan.
Seldon Mowbray: , John Cording,

Director: Terry Hands.
Designer: Mark Bailey.
Lighting: Terry Hands.
Sound: Mathew Williamson.
Assistant director: Kaye Wasserberg.

2009-03-03 10:59:35