Noises Off

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Noises Off  is a 1982 British play by Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970 when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of a farce entitled Chinamen he had written for Lynn Redgrave. According to the playwright, "It was funnier from behind than in front and I thought that one day I must write a farce from behind." [1] Frayn wrote this as a short play entitled Exits performed on 10 September 1977^[1][2], and adapted it to a full-length version in 1982.^[2] Critic Frank Rich has written that "Noises Off  is, was, and probably always will be the funniest play written in my lifetime."^[3]

Noises Off ^[4] premiered at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London, in 1982, directed by Jeremy Sams and starring Patricia Routledge, Paul Eddington, and Nicky Henson. (Cleverly included within the show's program was a facsimile of one for Nothing On, complete with biographical notes for the fictitious cast.^[5]) It opened to universally ecstatic reviews and shortly after transferred to the West End's Savoy Theatre in The Strand, where it settled in for a healthy run. It won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy.

On December 11, 1983, a production directed by Michael Blakemore and starring Dorothy Loudon, Victor Garber, Brian Murray, Deborah Rush, Douglas Seale, and Amy Wright opened in New York City at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, where it ran for 553 performances. It earned Tony Award nominations as Best Play and for Blakemore, Rush, and Seale, and won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Later Reception 3 External links 4 References

[edit] Plot

In his plot for Noises Off,  Frayn utilizes the concept of a play within a play, in this case a purposefully dreadful sex comedy entitled Nothing On—the type of play in which young girls run about in their underwear, old men drop their trousers, and many doors continually open and shut. Each of the three acts of Noises Off  contains a performance of the first act of Nothing On.^[6]

Act One is set at the dress rehearsal, the night before opening at the (fictional) Grand Theatre in Weston super Mare, with the cast still fumbling with entrances and exits, missed cues, misspoken lines, and bothersome props (notably, several plates of sardines).

Act Two portrays a Wednesday matinee performance one month later^[7], at the (again fictional) Grand Theatre in Ashton-under-Lyme; but it is seen from backstage, providing a view that reveals the deteriorating personal relationships among the cast that have led to offstage shenanigans and onstage bedlam.

In Act Three, we see a performance near the end of the ten-week run, at the (still fictional) Municipal Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees, when personal friction has continued to increase, everyone is bored and anxious to be done with it, and the actors attempt to cover a series of mishaps by making up the play as they go along. Much of the comedy emerges from the subtle variations in each version as off-stage chaos affects on-stage performance, with a great deal of slapstick.

[edit] Later Reception

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, Nicolette 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. Frank Rich, who so praised the play, wrote that the film is "one of the worst ever made."^[3]

Noises Off  has become a staple of both professional theater companies and community theaters on both sides of the Atlantic. On October 5, 2000, the National Theatre in London mounted a revival that ran for two years. A Broadway revival opened, again at the Brooks Atkinson, on November 1, 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.

[edit] External links

• IBDb listing for original 1983 Broadway production
• IBDb listing for 2001 Broadway revival
• Review of Broadway revival by Matthew Murray, November 1, 2001
• Noises Off at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] References

1. ^ Noises Off, A Play in Three Acts by Michael Frayn. Anchor Books, 2000 (ISBN 1-4000-3160-5).
2. ^ ^{a b} Author's Note in script.^[1]
3. ^ ^{a b} The Hot Seat, by Frank Rich.
4. ^ In theatrical stage directions, noises off specify sounds that are meant to be heard from offstage, such as crowd noises or gunshots.
5. ^ The script^[1] includes extracts that form the basis of such a program, though illustrations and graphic design are apparently left to the production.
6. ^ The three acts of Noises Off are each named "Act One" on the contents page of the script,^[1] though they are labeled normally in the body of the script.
7. ^ Multiple sources report that Act Two is set on opening night. The plot synopsis here describes the script published in 2000^[1], in which Michael Frayn notes that the play has been rewritten at least seven times.^[2]

Films Directed by Peter Bogdanovich
Targets • Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women • The Last Picture Show • What's Up, Doc? • Paper Moon • Daisy Miller • At Long Last Love • Nickelodeon • Saint Jack • They All Laughed • Mask • Illegally Yours • Texasville • Noises Off  • The Thing Called Love • The Cat's Meow • Hustle • Infamous