By John Speer
Salt Lake Community College’s production of Michael Frayn’s farcical masterpiece Noises Off opened Thursday night at the Grand Theatre to a warm response. The audience laughed throughout the evening.
I have to say, I have been very impressed with the productions I have seen at SLCC and the Grand Theatre of late. SLCC has one of the finest theater programs in the region, if not the nation. The theater itself is as grand as its name, the seating is comfortable, the ushers more than accommodating and helpful.
As many of you already know, Noises Off is a farce within a bigger farce, a play within a play. There’s the actual play, Noises Off, which is the story of the on and off-stage shenanigans surrounding the sex farce within the play called Nothing On. So literally every actor plays two roles, their role in Noises off, and the character they play in Nothing On. This is the scenario that is the fodder for some hysterical mishaps.
Director Anne Stewart Mark proves herself a real lover of the work, throwing in comedy bit after bit, most all of which were quite brilliantly conceived, although not quite executed to the point of being hilarious. Playwright Michael Frayn’s antics can be funnier, and I am chalking up this performance’s problems to opening night jitters. Whether it was because the able cast needed more time to get the timing right or worse, the delivery of Frayn’s lines and bits fell just a little short of the comedy mark Thursday night.
But the problems with the show are profoundly fixable because the actors are top notch. They include Lloyd, the Director of Nothing On, played by David Marsden, the lead “actors” played by Sallie Cooper, Jared Evans, Maggie Goertzen, Daniel Beecher, and Lauren Rathburn and the “stage hands” played by Haley McCormick and Dusty Heyrend. The best and funniest of the lot was Doug Vandegrift who played the bungling, drunken Selsden– playing the bungling drunken burglar in Nothing On. When Vandegrift was on, I was smiling and laughing.
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On the technical side, the set was brilliantly rendered from Frayn’s original plan and nicely constructed and manipulated by Kyle Becker and his crew. Lighting was well-designed by Ashley Barentine. Joe Killian’s sound was great but for one small faux pas at the “dress rehearsal” where an obviously non existent audience is heard “applauding.”
Costumes were nicely designed by Amanda Reiser, except for one of Brooke’s Nothing On costumes. Brooke plays the sex kitten who is seen with nearly “Nothing On.” In her sexy scenes, instead of looking like a funny sex kitten as Frayn intended, she wasn’t sexy. Maybe this was played down due to this show being performed in Utah? It is obvious that the director, actors, and technical designers all put everything they had into this work–there are some great performers and talent in this production.
Note: Noises Off has some language and sexual innuendo so I wouldn’t recommend this show for under teens.
The show plays at the beautiful Grand Theatre, May 8-24 at 7:30 PM. The Grand Theatre is located at 1575 S. State Street, Salt Lake City, Utah. For tickets, call 801-957-3322 or visit the website: http://the-grand.org/events
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