Stage West presents Michael Frayn’s Noises Off.

June 28 through July 27, Thursday evenings 7:30pm, Friday & Saturday evenings 8:00pm, Sunday matinees 3:00pm

We're adding 3 more performances to Noises Off, as it's been selling out almost every performance. New ones will be Fri Aug 1, Sat Aug 2, and Sun Aug 3.

Hilary Couch, Allison Pistorius (on bottom), Mark Shum photos by Buddy Myers

That’s what it’s all about. Door and sardines. Getting on—getting off. Getting the sardines on—getting the sardines off. That’s farce. That’s the theatre. That’s life.
                      Lloyd Dallas, in Noises Off

It’s very late in the evening, and a second-rate touring company is having a lengthy final dress rehearsal in the charmingly-named English town of Weston-super-Mare. The play is from that beloved genre of English theatre, the sex farce, and this one is called “Nothing On.” And things are not proceeding smoothly. Doors refuse to open, or refuse to stay shut. Lines are dropped. Entrances are early or late, and an elderly character actor with a bit of a drinking problem has not been seen. It’s the rehearsal from hell. And that’s just the start of the uproariously funny Noises Off, which begins its run at Stage West on Thursday, June 26.

The genius of playwright Michael Frayn’s conceit is how he manages to deconstruct an ordinary farce of the sort familiar to anyone who has seen Run For Your Wife or No Sex Please, We’re British. The first act shows the play in its final dress, with all the hiccups and misfires of the rehearsal. The second act moves forward in time a month, to a performance on the tour—but switches the action to backstage. Relationships among the company have started to deteriorate, and so the audience witnesses all sorts of backstage mayhem, intermingled with the lines and action from the first act. Act Three takes place about seven weeks after Act Two, and returns to the front stage view. By this time in the tour, everything has pretty much fallen apart, and the actors are struggling just to get through the play, in hilarious fashion.

Frayn has said in interviews that he conceived the notion of showing the backstage antics while standing backstage watching a performance of a farce he had written for Lynn Redgrave: "It was funnier from behind than in front and I thought that one day I must write a farce from behind.” And in doing so, he has created a play which is both a terrific send-up of and an hommage to the genre.

Michael Frayn was born on September 8, 1933, in the suburbs of London. His mother, a once promising young violinist, died when Frayn was only 12. He showed a talent for music and poetry as a boy, and by the time he was a teenager, he knew that he wanted to be a writer of some sort. After a brief stint in the army serving as a Russian interpreter, Frayn attended the University of Cambridge. Graduating in 1957 with a degree in "moral sciences," he soon began his writing career as a reporter and columnist, and published several collections of essays from his columns and wrote several novels. His first playwriting efforts were far from successful, but he continued to write. Alphabetical Order (1975) received raves from the critics and won Frayn the Evening Standard Award for "Best Comedy of the Year". He followed this success with Clouds (1976), Donkey's Years (1977), and Make or Break, (1980) which also won the Evening Standard Award. However, Frayn is perhaps best known for Noises Off (1982), which won him a third Evening Standard Award for "Best Comedy of the Year" and enjoyed a run of four years in London's West End. One of his most recent efforts, Copenhagen (1998), earned "Best Play" honors at the 1998 Evening Standard Awards and brought Frayn once again to the attention of international audiences. Frayn has also translated several of Chekhov's plays, and has had several of his works filmed for television in the UK.

Noises Off is Stage West’s second outing with Michael Frayn, having previously produced his Alphabetical Order in the Vickery space.

Noises Off is directed by Jim Covault, and features six actors who have worked with Stage West before, along with three new faces. Fading comic leading lady Dotty Otley will be played by Pam Dougherty, most recently seen at Stage West in The Clean House, with Jerry Russell as the tippling character actor Selsdon Mowbray. Allison Pistorius, seen as Sarah in Stage West’s Major Barbara, will play the ditzy ingénue Brooke, while Tracy Leigh drops her pregnancy pad from Season’s Greetings to play the statuesque Belinda. Mark Shum, most recently seen as Gussie in Right Ho, Jeeves at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, will play Dotty’s paramour Garry, with Linus Craig, recently returned from Houston, as the fainting-prone Frederick. Alex Chrestopoulos, whose credits include Barrymore in I Hate Hamlet, will play womanizing director Lloyd Dallas, while Nick Moore, a student at NYU’s Tisch School, will play the harried stage manager Tim. Hilary Couch, seen as Katherine in Shakespeare Dallas’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, will appear as the assistant stage manager Poppy.

Jim Covault will provide the set design, and will co-design costumes with Peggy Kruger-O’Brien, while Michael O’Brien will design the lighting.

Noises Off will have its preview performances on Thursday, June 26 at 7:30 and Friday, June 27 at 8:00, and will run through Thursdays through Sundays, closing July 27. Performances will be Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00, and Sunday matinees at 3:00. Food service will begin 90 minutes prior to performances, and information will be available through the Box Office, or at www.stagewest.org.

There will be an Opening Night champagne reception following the performance on June 28.

Ticket prices range from $24 to $28, with discounts for students and seniors. Preview tickets are priced at only $15. Pay What You Can performances will be Sunday, June 29 and Thursday, July 3.

Visit Stage West:

Stage West
821 W. Vickery St., Fort Worth, Texas 76104
Metro (817) 784-9378 (STG-WEST)

On-Line at: WWW.STAGEWEST.ORG