Never has a plate of sardines wreaked so much havoc. It’s just one of the props doing yeoman’s work alongside a delightfully engaged cast literally throwing themselves into Noises Off to open the Dallas Theater Center season.
While the first and third acts are hilarious, it’s the middle section of British playwright Michael Frayn’s backstage farce that makes it a classic. With the set rotated so the audience can see what’s going on behind the scenes during a beleaguered performance of the play-within-the-play Nothing’s On, Noises Off turns into an almost silent comedy of miscommunication and pratfalls.
The antics are fueled by romantic entanglements among cast and crew members of Nothing’s On and its shoddy production. On opening night Tuesday at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, the crowd was filled with show people knowingly guffawing. Hopefully, the outsized troubles depicted didn’t look too familiar.
Nothing’s On is set in a two-story house owned by a couple (Esteban Vilchez and Tiffany Solano among a cast of mostly DTC company members) who have moved to another country to avoid paying taxes. The presence of several doors hints that Noises Off will become a comedy of muffed entrances and exits, among other physical hijinks.
The brilliant second act, which takes place while the show is on tour, is set up by this earlier tech rehearsal in which the farce-within-the-farce starts to go wrong.
We first see the actor portraying the maid (Liz Mikel) wielding a plate of sardines and soon learn that the production is behind schedule hours before it’s supposed to open. The director (Alex Organ) is initially heard as an offstage voice-of-God before he’s spotted in the balcony and then rushes onstage as panic begins to grow with the arrival of the rest of the cast.
The beauty of Noises Off is that things can always get worse. By the third act, with Nothing’s On about to end its tour, the show is in shambles. Still, it can’t top the build-up of the second act, when all sorts of business stemming from the internecine affairs plays out backstage.
The director is particularly egregious, repeatedly having to send out the stage manager (Cristian Torres) to buy flowers for one of his intendeds when they keep winding up in the wrong hands. To avoid being seen by the fictional audience behind the turned around set, the actors have to cross the backstage floor on their hands and knees using increasingly comic techniques.
Jealousies spark mock violence worthy of the Three Stooges. Because there’s virtually no dialogue as the physical comedy grows more and more absurd, Noises Off becomes a pure comedy of pantomimed flubs and foul-ups. There’s not a more fun show on stage in Dallas.
Details
Through Oct. 26 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. $30-$95. dallastheatercenter.org.
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