REVIEW: Noises Off

Morgan Hallett as Poppy Norton-Taylor, Brent Harris as Frederick Fellowes, Megan Byrne as Belinda Blair and Kate Skinner as Dotty Otley in the Denver Center Theatre Company production of Michael Frayn’s hilarious theatrical farce Noises Off. Photo by Terry Shapiro

I've always enjoyed watching a demolition team implode a building. A group of highly skilled professionals spend weeks on intricate, methodical planning and painstakingly detailed preparation. They thoroughly examine the building's structure, lay the charges, and then BOOM! The whole thing collapses in on itself. When the dust clears, there's nothing but a pile of rubble. If the team knows what they're doing, the whole project appears effortless.

Michael Frayn's classic door-slamming farce Noises Off is a theatrical demolition job of the first order, and the Denver Center Theatre Company's well-seasoned and top-notch cast, under the superb direction of Kent Thompson, are a joy to behold as they go about bringing the curtain down on one of the 20th century's greatest back stage comedies.

The complicated and frenetically paced play within a play is constructed in three acts, during which a second rate theatrical company rehearses and performs the first act from a two-bit sex farce. The old adage that a terrible dress rehearsal precedes a great opening falls flat, as these insufficiently rehearsed, largely untalented, bed-hopping thespians inadvertently pose the question: "Precisely WHY must the show go on?"

After the dress rehearsal flops most hysterically, we fast forward a month, only to discover that the show's problems and inter-cast relationships have gone from bad to worse, though this time we see all the carrying on, most of which is pantomimed, from behind the scenes. Six more weeks have elapsed by Act Three, and both the play and the company have broken completely and hilariously down.

The action, consisting mostly of eight or more continuously slamming doors, quick costume changes (of the pants-falling-down variety), and escalating pranks and sabotage, is performed at break-neck speed, but with absolute precision. The Denver Center's brilliant actors wring an outstanding script for all it's worth.

And yet, the overriding worldview of the play is cynical and pessimistic. Both the actors and the characters they play have little in the way of redeeming values. No one learns or grows, and none of the myriad problems on or off stage are ever resolved.

After a building is imploded, no one wants to stick around for the clean up. And so it is with this comedy, that gasps to a halt amidst a lot of human wreckage; and that's no kind of happy ending.

With Noises Off, the audience laughs 'til it sighs.

The Denver Center Theatre Company's production of Noises Off plays at The Stage Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex through November 1, 2008. Call 303-893-4100 or visit www.denvercenter.org for information and reservations.