Noises Off
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Overview
Farce / 5m, 4f / 2 Int.Called the funniest farce ever written, NOISES OFF returned to Broadway with Patti LuPone and Peter Gallagher and a manic menagerie that sent reviewers searching for new accolades as a cast of itinerant actors rehearsing a flop called NOTHING'S ON.
"The most dexterously realized comedy ever about putting on a comedy. A spectacularly funny, peerless backstage farce. This dizzy, well-known romp is festival of delirium."
- The New York Times
"Bumper car brilliance...If laughter is indeed the best medicine, NOISES OFF is worth its weight in Cipro."
- New York Daily News
"The funniest farce ever written! Never before has side-splitting taken on a meaning dangerously close to the non-metaphorically medical."
- New York Post
"As side-splitting a farce as I have seen. Ever? Ever."
- New York Magazine
Synopsis
Noises Off is not one play but two - simultaneously a traditional sex farce, Nothing On, and the backstage farce that develops during Nothing On's final rehearsal and tour. The two farces begin to interlock, as the characters make their exits from Nothing On only to find themselves making entrances into the even worse nightmare going on backstage, and exit from that only to make their entrances back into Nothing On. In the end, at the disastrous final performance in Stockton-on-Tees, the two farces can be kept separate no longer, and coalesce into one single collective nervous breakdown.
Noises Off won both the Evening Standard and the Olivier Awards for Best Comedy when it was first produced, and ran in the West End for nearly five years. Michael Frayn's most recent play, Copenhagen, won both the Evening Standard Best Play Award in London and the Tony Best Play Award in New York.
Library Journal
This extremely popular play-within-a-play by Tony Award winner Frayn has been newly revised for its Broadway revival. Because of its complexity, it is a demanding read. Acts 1 and 2 are actually the same act performed at different times in different theaters: the first presents the final night of rehearsals for Nothing's On, a sex farce, in which the director, seated in the audience, shouts direction to the actor on stage; the second is the same act but seen from backstage during a touring performance less than a month later. Act 2 is formatted in double columns, allowing the reader to follow the actor in character on stage and the same actor out of character off stage and the folly that he or she is involved with behind the scenes. Act 3 comprises the same cast performing another play, Noises On. Complex it is, and as clever and as concise as something this multileveled can be. Written by a man with a vision, this is recommended for academic and large public libraries. Elizabeth Stifter, Brooklyn, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
Library Journal
This extremely popular play-within-a-play by Tony Award winner Frayn has been newly revised for its Broadway revival. Because of its complexity, it is a demanding read. Acts 1 and 2 are actually the same act performed at different times in different theaters: the first presents the final night of rehearsals for Nothing's On, a sex farce, in which the director, seated in the audience, shouts direction to the actor on stage; the second is the same act but seen from backstage during a touring performance less than a month later. Act 2 is formatted in double columns, allowing the reader to follow the actor in character on stage and the same actor out of character off stage and the folly that he or she is involved with behind the scenes. Act 3 comprises the same cast performing another play, Noises On. Complex it is, and as clever and as concise as something this multileveled can be. Written by a man with a vision, this is recommended for academic and large public libraries. Elizabeth Stifter, Brooklyn, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.From the Publisher
“Written by a man with a vision... Recommended.”—Library Journal
“The funniest play written in my lifetime”—Frank Rich, The New York Times
“Frayn’s construct is based on the principle that if farce involves watching the wheels come off a well-oiled machine, then nothing could be funnier than seeing the wheels fall off a farce itself. Pure comedy gold.”—The Guardian Noises Off
Winner of the Evening Standard, the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and the New York Drama Desk Award.