Great Lake Theater’s ‘Noises Off’ is a comical put upon put on

Photo By Roger Mastroianni

The British like their comedy the same as their drinks...dry but with a dash of absurdity. Take for example gin and tonic for one and “Noises Off” for another. Let’s take a quick peek at the cast shall we?

Lloyd Dallas (Topher Embrey) is the bombastic director for the play-within-the-play “Nothing On” who is rude and sarcastic due to their opening the show in mere hours and things are still going wrong. He is romantically entangled with Brooke (obviously not hired due to her acting skills) and Poppy who is the put upon assistant stage manager.

Dotty Otley (Jennifer Joplin) is hoping to reclaim some form of a nest egg as her television career has headed south and is the chief investor of the show. While a great television actress of yore she has problems with the concept of “no second, third or fourth takes in the theater”. She is involved with the much younger Garry Lejeune.

Garry LeJeune (Jeffrey C. Hawkins) is the play’s leading man who has difficulty speaking unless the line has been written down and rehearsed. He is involved with the much older Dotty and has been mistaken as the paramour of Brooke.

Brooke Ashton (Kinza Surani) is the ditz factor who when not reciting her lines stands with a blank expression no matter what mayhem is happening around her. She is prone to losing her contact lens which has a tendency to simply slide over on her eye making her blind. Part of the Lloyd-Poppy-Brooke trio.

Frederick (Freddie) Fellowes (Nick Steen) has nearly constant nosebleeds and fainting spells due to exposure to excitement or blood (he faints at the mere sight of his own blood on a handkerchief). A bit of a dim wit who has no stage confidence whatsoever.

Belinda Blair (Laura Welsh) is the rock of the company acting as peacemaker. Although prone to gossip and a bit two-faced her one desire is to get the play off without a hitch. The odds are against her. She is Freddie’s mother figure and Selsdon’s protector..

Selsdon Mowbray (David Anthony Smith) is the elderly patriarch of the company with a long and storied career that includes some baggage namely being extremely hard of hearing and a heavy drinker. It is the crew’s task to discover the hidden booze bottles before he does.

Poppy Norton-Taylor (Zӧe Lewis-McLean) does double and triple duty as assistant stage manager as well as understudy for every female character. She is highly emotional, skittish, over-sensitive and a bit pregnant with Lloyd’s baby.

Tim Allgood (Domonique Champion) begins the play without any sleep for the past 48 hours. Along with stage manager duties he is the understudy for all the male characters, fix-it man for the crumbling set and errand boy at Lloyd’s whims.

The show is divided into three acts but only one intermission. Act One is the technical rehearsal taken from the front of the fictional Grand Theatre of Weston-super-Mare stage far west of London. As the hours tick by to their opening the cast is hopelessly unprepared. Simple entrances, exits, cues, lines and props seem to be beyond their grasp while several plates of sardines appear and disappear with regularity. This drives Lloyd into a seething rage.

Act Two is one month later at a matinee performance and shows the behind the scenes mayhem at the Theatre Royal in Ashton-under-Lyne near Manchester, England (even farther from London’s West End). At this point the gloves have come off as the actors are in full battle mode with each other. Mistaken romantic rivalries ensue along with lovers’ tiffs, personal attacks and the continuing collection of on stage disasters. Bodily harm is the norm with various weapons on hand including a cactus, a fire ax and sardines. A lively game of “hide the bottle from Selsdon” ensues as well.

Act Three has the beleaguered cast near the end of the ten-week run playing Municipal Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees which is even farther north of London. Hope has been abandoned by all as relationships have soured to the point of no return, the tired set is on the verge of total collapse and the wrong props end up in the wrong hands. In spite of this the actors muddle on at all cost simply attempting to cover up the mounting chaos.

So how does this show stack up? I found the first act to be rather droll as the set-up is explained. While members of the opening night audience reacted to any bit of hilarity I found the humor a bit stretched. The second act after the intermission more than made up to it as it took on a much more lively form as the behind the scenes portion showed the madcap mayhem that seldom (if ever) is seen from past the foot lights. Act three continues with more catastrophic shenanigans on the front of the stage once more as the show deteriorates into total anarchy.

The cast works very well together as an ensemble of players and while no one outshines the other this is a good thing as it allows to see the group as a whole rather than individuals. Each actor has a specific part which they portray extremely well. The revolving stage set (front and back) designed by Jeff Herrmann is ingenious. Every small detail is attended to. Oona Natesan does a fabulous job with the costuming and the lighting design by Jason Lynch and sound design by Patrick John Kiernan is fantastic. Special nod to Nick Steen as fight director Laura Welsh as intimacy director and Matt Koenig as dialect coach. The entire mesh is aptly directed by Christopher Liam Moore.

This is a show that slowly builds on itself as the situations become more and more fatuous and out of control. With the slower paced first act patience is the key to truly enjoy this madcap gem to the end.

Great Lakes Theater’s production of “Noises Off” will be on stage in the Hanna Theatre at Playhouse Square in Cleveland, Ohio through May 18, 2025. For more information and tickets go to https://www.greatlakestheater.org/ or call (216) 241-6000.