Prairie and I just returned from using her dad’s Christmas present to her, which while it originally appeared in the form of cash, was soon converted into two tickets to the Seattle Rep‘s performance of Noises Off.
If you’ve ever been involved at all in theater and haven’t yet heard of Noises Off, you’re really missing out and, if there doesn’t happen to be a local performance anywhere around you in the near future, you should at least rent the movie version (it’s a very good stage to screen adaptation). The story is that of a touring troupe’s troubled performance of ‘Nothing On’, a stereotypical British sex farce. With love triangles, murderous jealous rage, alcohol, and far too many plates of sardines all in play, it’s not long before things start to take a turn for the worse — and just get funnier and funnier as they go along.
The Rep’s production was outstanding and very well cast, but for me it was Bhama Roget as Brooke Ashton who stole the show (and not just because she spends the majority of it running around in her underwear). Even when Brooke didn’t have any immediate business, her wonderfully spaced-out moments and hilarious facial expressions had me cracking up throughout the show. Stephanie Timm as Poppy Norton-Taylor, Michael Patten as Frederick Fellowes and Mark Chaberlin as the long-suffering director Lloyd Dallas all also gave standout performances as well — though this certainly isn’t to slight the rest of the cast, as there certainly wasn’t a dud in the bunch.
As an added bonus, the program contains a secondary program for the play-within-a-play ‘Nothing On’ which is quite funny in itself, from the cast bios to the sponsor advertisements and the hilariously deadpan excerpts from ‘Eros Untrousered: Studies in the Semantics of Bedroom Farce’ printed on the back page:
The cultural importance of the so-called ‘bedroom farce,’ or ‘English sex farce,’ has long been recognized, but attention has tended to center on the metaphysical significance of mistaken identity and upon the social criticism implicit in the form’s ground-breaking exploration of cross-dressing and trans-gender role-playing. The focus of scholarly interest, however, is now beginning to shift to the recurrence of certain mythic themes in the genre, and to their religious and spiritual implications.
The show runs for the next two weeks through January 15th, and tickets are very reasonably priced (Prairie and I had second row center seats for \$35 each) — if you’re into theater at all, this really shouldn’t be missed.
Other reviews:
- Seattle P-I: Rep’s ‘Noises Off’ is frenzied perfection
- Seattle Times: Right on cue: Rep comedy “Noises Off” delightfully deteriorates
- Seattle Weekly: On and Off and Back Again: The Seattle Rep scores with Michael Frayn’s dizzying, dueling farces.
“Where the Lemons Bloom Waltz” by (unknown) from the album Ultimate Classical Collection, The (1995, 9:08).