1982 play written by Michael Frayn
Noises Off
|
---|
Poster for the 2001 Broadway revival
|
Written by
| Michael Frayn
|
---|
Characters
| Garry Lejeune
Dotty Otley
Lloyd Dallas
Belinda Blair
Frederick Fellowes
Brooke Ashton
Tim Allgood
Selsdon Mowbray
Poppy Norton-Taylor
|
---|
Date premiered
| 1982
|
---|
Place premiered
| Lyric Theatre
, London
|
---|
Original language
| English
|
---|
Subject
| Play within a play
|
---|
Genre
| Comedy
|
---|
Noises Off
is a 1982
farce
by the English playwright
Michael Frayn
.
Frayn conceived the idea in 1970 while watching from the wings a performance of
The Two of Us
, a
farce
that he had written for
Lynn Redgrave
. He said, "It was funnier from behind than in front, and I thought that one day I must write a farce from behind."
[1]
The prototype, a short-lived one-act play called
Exits
, was written and performed in 1977. At the request of his associate,
Michael Codron
, Frayn expanded this into what would become
Noises Off
. It takes its title from the theatrical stage direction indicating sounds coming from offstage.
Characters of
Noises Off
[
edit
]
- Lloyd Dallas: The director of a play-within-the-play,
Nothing On
. Temperamental, exacting and sarcastic. Involved with both Brooke and Poppy.
- Dotty Otley: A middle-aged television star who is not only the top-billed star but also one of the play's principal investors. Dating the much younger Garry.
- Garry Lejeune: The play's leading man, a solid actor who is completely incapable of finishing a sentence unless it is dialogue. Constantly stutters and ends sentences with "you know..." Dating Dotty and prone to jealousy.
- Brooke Ashton: A young, inexperienced actress from London. She pays no attention to others, either in performance or backstage, and persists in her role as scripted regardless of any interruption or mayhem. She is always losing her
contact lenses
, without which she is blind. Part of the Lloyd?Poppy?Brooke love triangle.
- Frederick (Freddie) Fellowes: Has a serious fear of violence and blood, both of which give him nosebleeds. Well-meaning, but lacks confidence and is rather dim-witted.
- Belinda Blair: Cheerful and sensible, a reliable actress and the company's de facto peacemaker. Something of a gossip, and a bit two-faced. Has a rather protective attitude towards Freddie.
- Selsdon Mowbray: An elderly, half-deaf "pro" with a long, storied career and a drinking problem. If he is not in sight while rehearsing, the stage crew must find him before he finds anything alcoholic.
- Poppy Norton-Taylor: Assistant Stage Manager and understudy to the female roles. Emotional, skittish and over-sensitive. Part of the Lloyd-Poppy-Brooke love triangle and, by act two, pregnant with Lloyd's baby.
- Tim Allgood: The over-worked and easily flustered Stage Manager, who must understudy, fix the set and run Lloyd's errands on top of his usual duties.
Characters of the play-within-the-play,
Nothing On
[
edit
]
- Mrs. Clackett (Dotty): The Cockney housekeeper for the Brents' home. A hospitable, though slow-witted and slow-moving, chatterbox.
- Roger Tramplemain (Garry): An estate agent looking to let Flavia's and Philip's house.
- Vicki (Brooke): A girl Roger is attempting to seduce (or perhaps a girl trying to seduce Roger). Works for the
tax authorities
.
- Philip Brent (Freddie): Lives out of the country with his wife Flavia to
avoid paying taxes
and is on a secret visit.
- Flavia Brent (Belinda): Philip Brent's wife. She is dependable, though not one for household duties.
- Burglar (Selsdon): An old man in his seventies, breaking into the Brents' house.
- Sheikh (Freddie): Interested in renting the house.
Plot
[
edit
]
Each of the three acts of
Noises Off
contains a performance of the first act of a
play within a play
, a
sex farce
called
Nothing On
. The three acts of
Noises Off
are each named "Act One" on the contents page of the script, though they are labelled normally in the body of the script, and the programme for
Noises Off
will include, provided by the author, a comprehensive programme for the Weston-super-Mare run of
Nothing On
, including spoof advertisements (for sardines) and acknowledgments to the providers of mysterious props that do not actually appear (e.g. stethoscope, hospital trolley, and straitjacket). Nothing is seen of the rest of
Nothing On
except for the ending of its Act 2.
Nothing On
is the type of
farce
in which young girls run about in their underwear, old men drop their trousers, and many doors continually bang open and shut. It is set in "a delightful 16th-century
posset
mill",
[2]
[3]
modernised by the current owners and available to let while they are abroad; the fictional playwright is appropriately named Robin Housemonger.
Act One is set at the
technical rehearsal
at the (fictional) Grand Theatre in
Weston-super-Mare
. It is midnight, the night before the first performance and the cast are hopelessly unready. Baffled by entrances and exits, missed cues, missed lines, and bothersome props, including several plates of sardines, they drive Lloyd, their director, into a seething rage and back several times during the run.
Act Two shows a Wednesday matinee performance one month later,
[4]
at the Theatre Royal in
Ashton-under-Lyne
. (Designed by Frank Matcham in 1891, the Theatre Royal, Ashton-under-Lyne was demolished in 1963.) In this act, the play is seen from backstage, providing a view that emphasises the deteriorating relationships between the cast. Romantic rivalries, lovers' tiffs and personal quarrels lead to offstage shenanigans, onstage bedlam and the occasional attack with a fire axe.
Act Three depicts a performance near the end of the ten-week run, at the (fictional) Municipal Theatre in
Stockton-on-Tees
. Relationships between the cast have soured considerably, the set is breaking down and props are winding up in the wrong hands, on the floor, and in the way. The actors remain determined at all costs to cover up the mounting chaos, but it is not long before the plot has to be abandoned entirely and the more coherent characters are obliged to take a lead in
ad-libbing
towards some sort of end.
Much of the comedy emerges from the subtle variations in each version as character flaws play off each other off-stage to undermine on-stage performance, with a great deal of
slapstick
. The contrast between players' on-stage and off-stage personalities is also a source of comic dissonance.
Production history
[
edit
]
The play premiered at the
Lyric Theatre
,
Hammersmith
, London in 1982, directed by
Michael Blakemore
and starring
Patricia Routledge
,
Paul Eddington
, and
Nicky Henson
. It opened to excellent reviews and shortly after transferred to the
Savoy Theatre
in the
West End
, where it ran until 1987 with five successive casts. It won the
Evening Standard
Award
for Best Comedy.
[
citation needed
]
On 11 December 1983, a production directed again by Blakemore and starring
Dorothy Loudon
,
Victor Garber
,
Brian Murray
,
Jim Piddock
,
Deborah Rush
,
Douglas Seale
, and
Amy Wright
opened on
Broadway
at the
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
, where it ran for 553 performances. It earned
Tony Award
nominations for Best Play and for Blakemore, Rush, and Seale, and won a
Drama Desk Award
for Outstanding Ensemble.
[
citation needed
]
Noises Off
has become a staple of both professional theatre companies and
community theatres
on both sides of the Atlantic. On 5 October 2000, the
National Theatre
in London mounted a revival, directed by
Jeremy Sams
and starring
Patricia Hodge
,
Peter Egan
and
Aden Gillett
, that ran for two years, transferring to the
Piccadilly Theatre
in the West End on 14 May 2001 with
Lynn Redgrave
and
Stephen Mangan
replacing Hodge and Egan, respectively. Sams' production transferred to Broadway, again at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, on 1 November 2001, with
Patti LuPone
,
Peter Gallagher
,
Faith Prince
,
T. R. Knight
, and
Katie Finneran
. The production was nominated for a Tony and Drama Desk Award as Best Revival of a Play, and Finneran was named Best Featured Actress by both groups.
[
citation needed
]
Frayn has repeatedly rewritten the play over the years. The last revision was in 2000 at the request of Jeremy Sams. There are numerous differences between the 1982 and 2000 scripts. Some new sequences have been added (e.g., an introduction to Act Three, in which Tim, the Company Stage Manager, and Poppy, the Assistant Stage Manager, make simultaneous apologies ? the former in front of the curtain, the latter over the PA ? for the delay in the performance). Other sequences have been altered or cut entirely. References that tend to date the play (such as Mrs. Clackett's to the Brents having
colour television
) have been eliminated or rewritten.
[
citation needed
]
A London production ran from 3 December 2011 to 10 March 2012 at
The Old Vic
, directed by
Lindsay Posner
and starring
Jonathan Coy
,
Janie Dee
,
Robert Glenister
,
Jamie Glover
,
Celia Imrie
,
Karl Johnson
,
Aisling Loftus
,
Amy Nuttall
and
Paul Ready
. This production transferred to the
Novello Theatre
in the West End from 24 March to 30 June 2012, and then toured Britain and Ireland with a different cast.
[
citation needed
]
A Broadway revival, produced by
Roundabout Theatre Company
, started in previews at the
American Airlines Theatre
on 17 December 2015, and opened on 14 January 2016. The cast featured
Andrea Martin
(Dotty Otley),
Megan Hilty
(Brooke Ashton),
Campbell Scott
(Lloyd Dallas),
Jeremy Shamos
(Frederick Fellowes),
David Furr
(Garry Lejeune),
Rob McClure
(Tim Allgood),
Daniel Davis
(Selsdon Mowbray),
Kate Jennings Grant
(Belinda Blair), and
Tracee Chimo
(Poppy Norton-Taylor).
[5]
[6]
The revival ran its limited run through 13 March 2016, extending by one week due to popular demand.
[7]
The production was nominated for 2016
Tony Awards
for Best Revival of Play, Best Featured Actress for Martin and Hilty, Best Featured Actor for Furr, and Best Costume Design.
[8]
An Australian production was mounted at the
Queensland Performing Arts Centre
, where it ran for three weeks as part of
Queensland Theatre Company's
2017 season.
[9]
After the season with QTC, the show then transferred to the
Playhouse Theatre
, where it ran from 8 July to 12 August with
Melbourne Theatre Company
.
[9]
The cast featured
Simon Burke
as Lloyd Dallas, Emily Goddard as Poppy Norton-Taylor,
Libby Munro
as Brooke Ashton, Ray Chong Nee as Garry Lejeune, Hugh Parker as Frederick Fellowes, James Saunders as Timothy Allgood,
Louise Siversen
as Dotty Otley,
Steven Tandy
as Selsdon Mowbray and
Nicki Wendt
as Belinda Blair.
[10]
In Australia it has been produced many times and in many places from 1982 to 2017.
[11]
The play returned to the
Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith
in a new production directed by
Jeremy Herrin
from 27 June to 3 August 2019, starring Lois Chimimba,
Jonathan Cullen
,
Debra Gillett
, Amy Morgan,
Enyi Okoronkwo
,
Lloyd Owen
,
Daniel Rigby
,
Simon Rouse
and
Meera Syal
. The production transferred to the
Garrick Theatre
in
London
's
West End
with
Sarah Hadland
,
Richard Henders
,
Lisa McGrillis
,
Anjli Mohindra
and Adrian Richards replacing Gillet, Cullen, Morgan, Chimimba and Okoronkwo from the Hammersmith run from 27 September 2019 until 4 January 2020.
A 40th anniversary production directed by
Lindsay Posner
ran at the
Phoenix Theatre, London
from January to March 2023 (following a short UK tour in autumn 2022) starring
Felicity Kendal
,
Matthew Kelly
,
Tracy-Ann Oberman
,
Alexander Hanson
, Sasha Frost,
Joseph Millson
,
Jonathan Coy
Pepter Lunkuse and
Hubert Burton
.
[12]
The production also began a UK tour at the
Birmingham Rep
with Kelly,
Liza Goddard
,
Simon Shepherd
,
Dan Fredenburgh
,
Lisa Ambalavanar
, Nikhita Lesler,
Simon Coates
,
Lucy Robinson
and Daniel Rainford from September 2023. The production will also return to the West End at the
Theatre Royal Haymarket
with Kendal, Coy and Hanson returning, joined by
Mathew Horne
,
Tamzin Outhwaite
, Oscar Batterham and
James Fleet
from September to December 2023.
Notable casts
[
edit
]
Notable replacements
[
edit
]
West End 1982:
[15]
[
edit
]
Broadway 1983:
[21]
[
edit
]
First West End Revival 2001
[15]
[
edit
]
First Broadway Revival 2001:
[22]
[
edit
]
Film adaptation
[
edit
]
In 1992, the play was adapted for the screen by
Marty Kaplan
. The film, directed by
Peter Bogdanovich
and starring
Carol Burnett
,
Michael Caine
,
Christopher Reeve
,
John Ritter
,
Nicollette Sheridan
,
Denholm Elliott
,
Julie Hagerty
,
Mark Linn-Baker
and
Marilu Henner
, received mixed reviews, with many critics noting it was too much of a theatrical piece to translate well to the screen.
[23]
[24]
Frank Rich
, who had called it "the funniest play written in my lifetime",
[25]
wrote that the film is "one of the worst ever made".
[26]
Reception
[
edit
]
Noises Off
has been described as "the funniest farce ever written",
[27]
and "the classic farce".
[28]
It has been highly influential, possibly inspiring
The Play That Goes Wrong
series.
[29]
The Guardian
and
Chris Addison
have praised its structure.
[30]
[31]
Awards and honours
[
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]
First Broadway production
[
edit
]
2001 Broadway revival
[
edit
]
2016 Broadway revival
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Mehlman, Barbara K.
"A CurtainUp Review"
.
CurtainUp
. Retrieved
18 September
2013
.
- ^
The fake programme for
Nothing On
provided by the script includes the nonsensical explanation: "In a posset-mill production was maintained throughout the year by allowing the milk to run into a heated curdling chamber where the flow of incoming ale or vinegar was ingeniously harnessed to operate a simple kind of theatrical thundersheet. The product was then packed in small 'yoggy pots' made from the scrota of wild yogs".
- ^
A
posset
was a medieval beverage made of curdled milk. See article on
Round the Horne
, a 1960s radio show which made
posset
a humorous word in English comedy.
- ^
Multiple sources report that Act Two is set on opening night. The plot synopsis here describes the script published in 2000, in which Michael Frayn notes that the play has been rewritten at least seven times.
- ^
Gans, Andrew.
"Backstage Comedy
Noises Off
, Starring Andrea Martin and Megan Hilty, Returns to Broadway Tonight"
,
Playbill
, 17 December 2015
- ^
Staff.
"The Verdict: Did Critics Open the Door?or Slam It?on Broadway's
Noises Off
?"
,
Playbill
, 14 January 2016
- ^
Staff.
"Roundabout's
Noises off
Extends Broadway Run"
, broadwayworld.com, 25 January 2016
- ^
"See Full List of 2016 Tony Award Nominations"
,
Playbill
, 3 May 2016
- ^
a
b
Noises Off
review"
,
Arts Review
, 6 June 2017
- ^
"
Noises Off
production details
,
Melbourne Theatre Company
, 2017
- ^
"AusStage: Noises Off"
.
ausstage.edu.au
. Retrieved
29 March
2021
.
- ^
"Noises Off 40th Anniversary production stars Felicity Kendal"
.
londonboxoffice.co.uk
. Retrieved
17 March
2022
.
- ^
Frayn, Michael (1985).
Noises Off
. Newy York, NY: Samuel French, Inc. p. 4.
ISBN
0-573-61969-7
.
- ^
"Noises Off ? Broadway Play ? Original | IBDB"
.
ibdb.com
. Retrieved
9 April
2022
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Noises Off by Michael Frayn on stage in London through to 4 January 2020 ? theatre tickets and information ? thisistheatre.com"
.
thisistheatre.com
. Retrieved
9 April
2022
.
- ^
"Noises Off ? Broadway Play ? 2001 Revival | IBDB"
.
ibdb.com
. Retrieved
9 April
2022
.
- ^
"Noises Off ? full cast announced at Old Vic"
.
London Theatre
. 8 June 2016
. Retrieved
9 April
2022
.
- ^
"Noises Off ? Broadway Play ? 2016 Revival | IBDB"
.
ibdb.com
. Retrieved
9 April
2022
.
- ^
Darvill, Josh (8 September 2019).
"Noises Off cast confirmed for 2019 West End production"
.
Stage Chat
. Retrieved
9 April
2022
.
- ^
Phoenix Theatre programme
- ^
"Noises Off ? Broadway Play ? Original | IBDB"
.
ibdb.com
. Retrieved
9 April
2022
.
- ^
"Noises Off ? Broadway Play ? 2001 Revival | IBDB"
.
ibdb.com
. Retrieved
9 April
2022
.
- ^
SGR.
"
Noises Off
..."
Time Out London
. Retrieved
26 November
2013
.
- ^
"
Noises Off
(PG-13)"
.
The Washington Post
. 20 March 1992
. Retrieved
26 November
2013
.
- ^
"Theatre review:
Noises Off
at Theatre Royal, Newcastle, and touring"
. Britishtheatreguide.info
. Retrieved
4 October
2013
.
- ^
The Hot Seat
, by
Frank Rich
.
[
page needed
]
- ^
Johns, Lindsay (14 February 2022).
"Michael Frayn's sublime farce is 40 years old. Lindsay Johns celebrates its genius"
.
The Oldie
. Retrieved
21 May
2023
.
- ^
Billington, Michael (8 September 2022).
"Noises Off: the farce masterclass that is truly revealing"
.
The Guardian
. London
. Retrieved
21 May
2023
.
- ^
Thorpe, Vanessa (8 January 2023).
"
'It's my Mousetrap': Michael Frayn on Noises Off, a farce to be reckoned with"
.
The Observer
. Retrieved
21 May
2023
.
- ^
"BBC Radio 4 ? Chain Reaction, Series 8, Rebecca Front interviews Chris Addison"
. 7:34: BBC
. Retrieved
22 May
2023
.
structurally the most perfect piece of comedy writing I have encountered
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: location (
link
)
- ^
Gillinson, Miriam (29 September 2022).
"Noises Off review ? Frayn's exquisite farce-within-a-farce finds new humanity"
.
The Guardian
. London
. Retrieved
22 May
2023
.
External links
[
edit
]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Noises Off
.