What's that chaos behind the curtain?

The antics onstage give a glimpse of what might be going on backstage in this award-winning play-within-a-play.

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN, Times Staff Writer
Published August 31, 2007

Anyone who has ever been in a theatrical production knows that what goes on backstage is often more entertaining than what the audience out front actually sees.

That's the raison d'etre for Noises Off, the comedy-farce opening Thursday and continuing weekends through Sept. 23 at Stage West Community Playhouse.

It won four Tony Awards, including Best Play, when it hit Broadway in 1983, as well as several Drama Desk Awards. The slightly different 1992 movie version starring Carol Burnett still crops up on television from time to time.

The idea for the play came to playwright Michael Frayn while he was watching a play from behind the scenes and found himself more amused by the backstage intrigues than the show out front.

In Act 1 of his three-act comedy, a touring company is doing the final rehearsal for a dreadful sex comedy, Nothing On. No one seems ready to open a show. There are dropped lines, entrances and exits seem to happen at random.

In Act 2, the two-story set turns halfway around to show what's going on backstage, as romances bloom and wither, actors squabble, entrances are missed and exits are flubbed.

In Act 3, the set is turned halfway back around to show the bone-tired, worn-out actors struggling to get through the last performance on the road.

Relationships have sprung up and are unraveling, the actors are at each other's throats, the liquor flows freely, everything is in chaos and everyone in the show has completely lost interest in what goes on out front.

Lloyd (George Dwyer, Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls), the womanizing director of the play-within-a-play, can't keep his romantic affairs straight. The sexy blond bombshell Brooke Ashton (Leslee Starz, Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls) is tryingto juggle her lovers.

Tim, the stage manager (Babberly in Charley's Aunt), makes excuses to the audience for inevitable delays.

Noises Off is a term for sounds that can be heard from offstage during a play. It's an apt title for a play where the best action isn't what the audience out front actually sees.

If you go

'Noises Off'

Where: Stage West Community Playhouse, 8390 Forest Oaks Blvd., Spring Hill.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday and on Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 22; 2 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 23.

Tickets: $18, reserved seating. Box office is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and an hour before each show. Call (352) 683-5113

[Last modified August 30, 2007, 21:43:54]