Comedy isn’t hard. It’s grueling.
The Denver Center Theatre Company puts on an exhaustive demonstration on the art of physical comedy, precision timing and synchronized chaos with its impressive, funny and, yes, long new production of “Noises Off.”
You might think no comedy can — or should even try to — sustain itself for nearly three hours, but this laugh marathon plainly merits the admiration its tickled audience bestows back upon it at its end.
For 30 years, the DCTC has been known for either jumping on great new plays, or not bothering with them at all. This season’s opening trio of “Noises Off,” “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Trip to Bountiful” marks a sea-change in which artistic director Kent Thompson is circling back on recent classics the company passed on the first time around.
Despite its girth and awkward title, Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off” is widely regarded as the best farce of the past 50 years. And though it’s been done by just about every theater company (but the DCTC) since 1984, Thompson’s staging proves it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen a play done — it’s how many times you’ve seen it done well.
Chances are you haven’t seen this play done this well before.
This farce-within-a-farce introduces a hilariously inept British acting company touring an awful sex romp called “Nothing On,” a door-slamming trifle set in the living room of a British country home.
Over three acts, we see the first scene play out at three different times — the bungled final rehearsal, a disastrous matinee and, much later, when the tour is falling apart and hostilities are unbridled. Each viewing builds comically on the one previous, thanks to jealous lovers, abundant whiskey, missing actors, malfunctioning props, comic egos and falling clothes. It’s all carefully orchestrated mayhem that builds like a symphony crescendo of comedy.
The genius lies in the second act, when we get to see the shenanigans from a backstage vantage point, while still able to view the onstage action through the living room’s large bay window. It’s not just that we get to see two scenes at once, it’s that we get to see two scenes at once that are frenetic, kinetic and intentionally crumbling before our eyes. It’s a monstrous challenge.
But one aspect of this staging is a bit fishy (and I’m not talking about the preponderance of sardines). In Act I, the audience can plainly see a brick wall behind the bay window, preventing us from seeing backstage. But once the set rotates 180 degrees for Act 2, that brick wall is gone, and we can see out that window as sure as they can see in. But all of the backstage shenanigans play out directly behind this window, so I was never sure if we were being asked to suspend disbelief about the presence of the wall – or if the implied audience on the other side was supposed to be witnessing the same backstage madness we were.
In previous viewings, I’ve seen directors go to great pains to move the antics away from the window. So it’s a bit of a cheat here. And yet — still 35 minutes of pure comic bliss.
“Noises Off” is fun for actors because it’s both an uncanny homage and a spot-on skewering of life in the theater. And because many of them get to juggle two roles. (The program even includes very funny fake bios for the “actors” who are performing the play within the play. For example, the “Nothing On” playwright is the fictional Robin Housemonger. That’s funny.) Scenic designer Vicki Smith fills the backstage wall with dialogue to help doddering and near-deaf actor Selsdon Mowbray (Philip Peasants) remember his lines, as well as melancholy theater truisms such as, “I used to be a tour de force … but now I’m forced to tour.”
And audiences love it for its many great one-liners, and for the parade of inconsequential humiliations these lovably egotistical actors must endure. DCTC audiences will enjoy longtime favorites like Sam Gregory playing combative director Lloyd Dallas; never-better David Ivers as an actor who’s all just … you know … unable to finish his sentences; and Brent Harris as the thesp who bleeds at the mere mention of blood.
The staging also marks the welcome returns of Morgan Hallett (“Hamlet” and many others), an all-heart Megan Byrne (“The Sweetest Swing in Baseball”) and Michael Keyloun (“Jesus Hates Me”); as well as a notable Denver debut from Kate Skinner as a more acidic but funnier Dotty than audiences may remember.
But stealing the show is newcomer Kate MacCluggage as Barbie beauty Belinda Blair. Near-nudity is a staple of British farce, and MacCluggage gives us that, and much more — winking line delivery, incredulous body contortions and a riotous final scene in which her doe-eyed character is utterly incapable of acting on the fly, even when everyone around her has wandered miles from the script.
As an ensemble, they demonstrate terrific pacing and absolute comic authority. Imagine having to know a show not only backward and forward — but onstage and back.
This is a show where everything is supposed to go wrong. And to their great credit here, nothing ever does.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Noises Off” ***1/2 (out of four stars)
Farce. Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company at the Stage Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex. Through Nov. 1. 2 hours, 50 minutes with two intermissions. 6:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays. $36-$57. 303-893-4100, King Soopers or .
“Noises Off” video: Dueling Directors
This episode of a fun new video series hosted by the Denver Center’s Charlie Miller features “Noises Off” director Kent Thompson, along with “Nothing On” director Lloyd Dallas, as played by Sam Gregory. Fun stuff. Run time: 2:30.
