By Jennifer Mustoe
This is Night #3 at the Neil Simon Festival in Cedar City—Noises Off by Michael Frayn. These performances have been preview nights—their real season begins on Sunday, July 16th and runs through mid-August. Previews can often be train wrecks. None of the Simon Fest’s shows have been anything but great. Tonight’s Noises Off, though it needs tightening, is still very, very good, and very, very funny.
Very simply, Noises Off is a play within a play and shows the problems actors have onstage, backstage, and off stage (with romances within the cast—never a good idea.) In Act One, we see the ridiculous and nonsensical Nothing On, the play within the play, and see what the lines are supposed to be. Act Two, the entire set is turned around (on wheels—kudos to Scenic Designer/Technical Director Randy Lawrence Seely) and we see what happens backstage, where you have to be silent (I know this from personal experience) and what you do to try to communicate anyway. In Act Three, the set is again turned around and we see how the show is supposed to go, but by then, it’s devolved into something so hard to understand that it is chaotically hilarious.
Director TJ Penrod gets his talented cast moving in a frantic, frenetic way up and down stairs and through the many (5?) doors on the set. Doors open and shut, actors click and clack up and down the stairs, the lines from Nothing On make absolutely no sense (like, they keep talking about sardines!) but Penrod keeps the chaos moving well. I keep mentioning chaos—don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s part of what makes Noises Off so funny. Though this show can easily be appreciated by actors who have been there and done that, tonight’s audience proves you don’t have to be an actor to see why Noises Off’s onstage/backstage flips don’t flop. We all get how horrible and horribly funny things can be when, no matter how hard you try, things just go completely to heck.
Holly Barrick plays Dotty Ottley—an older actress who’s plunged her own money into the production of Nothing On. Ottley’s character plays a Cockney maid who is obsessed with platters of sardines. Dotty is having an affair with Garry Lejeune (Kade Cox) and as can be imagined, when the romance sours, the play, already awful, suffers. Barrick and Cox play their characters well, especially once they are no longer lovers but are enemies. Barrick’s character by Act Three goes completely bananas, and watch what Barrick does across the stage toward the end of the play. I don’t know if this was her choice or a directorial choice by Penrod, but it’s subtle and really funny. Cox’s character has many, many of his sentences end with “you know” because Lejeune is rather thick and can’t think past what’s written in the script. Cox has to be very physical in this part (pretty much everyone does, really) and his physical comedy is really great. He throws himself up and down those stairs, falls down the stairs, mimics all kinds of horrible actions toward Dotty during the backstage scene, and keeps the scenes pretty tight. He is a strong actor.
Lloyd Dallas, the director of Nothing On is played with lots of great timing and precision by Nate Marble. Marble is the only actor with a mic and we hear him best. He also has a very strong English accent. I’ve seen Noises Off several times, and I love what Marble does with his lothario character as his affairs with two women involved in the play is found out. Marble becomes very dopey dog lovey toward the sexy Brooke Ashton (Tammi Colombo) and I liked this choice. Colombo kept her energy high and played the bimbo type with more caring than I’ve seen in other performances. Her little heels she wore clicking up and down the stairs were a little distracting, but she is a hoot as she flips her long ponytail all over and her “pose” got lots of laughs.
Frederick Fellowes (Trevor Messenger) (who brilliantly played Eugene in last night’s Broadway Bound), is one of the funniest parts in the show. He has frequent nosebleeds and becomes faint when there is any violence. Up and down Messenger went as his character struggles with all the mess that goes on in the show. I was happiest when Messenger was onstage. He is filled with a quiet energy that is great to watch.
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Belinda Blair (Selena Price) plays her character with warmth and charm. I think the Belinda character often gets overlooked because she doesn’t do anything completely nutty. But Price kept Belinda kind yet fun, and this grounds the piece. Jordyn Aspyn’s Poppy Norton-Taylor has her big moments later in the show and Aspyn carries these moments off with real style. Tim Allgood (Robert F. Wilson) is the ultimate techie, until he has to help the show not completely die. Wilson is very funny—his timing is great and he seems very comfortable with his role. I believed him as Tim. Henry Ballesteros’ Selsdon Mowbray has a depth I haven’t seen before. He plays Selsdon with a real respect, not just some drunken, blithering dope. Selsdon, by the mere fact that he is often AWOL, is often a throw away character, but Ballesteros gives him a slightly off-kilter charm.
Costumes by Jen Bach were appropriate. This isn’t a costume heavy show. I especially liked Frederick’s beige suit and violet shirt.
Noises Off is a funny show. There is a lot going on and it gets a little harried, but it’s supposed to. However, there are lots of big laughs in this show and, except for one F word, it’s very tame and you could bring tweens to it. Noises Off is a show that is produced regularly locally and every time I see it, I remember how much I laugh in it. The Simon Fest’s production is no exception. Come and laugh (your guts out) at Simon Fest’s silly, crazy, energy-filled Noises Off.
Neil Simon Festival presents Noises Off, by Neil Simon
The Heritage Center Theater, 105 North 100 East, Cedar City, UT 84720
Tickets: $25 or $80 for all four shows.
Contact: info@simonfest.org, 435-267-0194
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