DEXTER, Mich. – British farce, done well, is marvelous. And even when it’s done right, it’s not every theater-goer’s cup of tea. But Noises Off, now playing at The Encore Musical Theatre, more than delivers on this challenging genre and show that is a favorite of most actors who like to be challenged.

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The show originated in London’s West End, and has had three runs on Broadway since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. The plot is a classic show-within-the-show idea. “Somewhere in England,” a group of second-tier actors working in a second-tier house are putting on a show called “Nothing On.” Props to the Encore for inserting a program for that show inside the program for the show we came to see.

In Act 1, one of three, we watch the actors stumble and struggle through a late-night rehearsal with director Lloyd Dallas (Daniel A. Helmer) who is out of site in the loft of the theatre shouting exasperated direction to Dotty Otley (Wendy Katz Hiller) who can’t seem to figure out what she is supposed to do with a plate of sardines, a newspaper and the phone receiver before she exits at the end of a scene. Actors love to do this show because they have “been there.” And playwright Michael Frayn has captured the histrionics and backstage dramatics of putting on a play, and moved them into a delicious, headlong plunge into silliness.

In the Act 2, after the crew moved the prodigious set piece of doors, windows and staircase, turning it around in sections, we are now backstage, observing how the rivalries among the cast, affairs and vendettas have developed. There is a perfectly simple, but hilarious, passing about of an axe, a cactus plant and a bouquet of flowers, as the cast tunes up what everyone no knows will be a disaster of a show.

In Act 3, we get to watch the final production unfold as if we are watching “Nothing On,” and the players disintegrate so hopelessly and helplessly that no one has any idea where they are in the script, or whether there is a script any more. With a talented cast like this one, one of the beauties of the script is that it may be the most forgiving in the history of theatre – if the two hours of snappy crackling dialogue and complicated blocking should elude one of Encore’s actors, they can blunder and ad-lib something that seems right for their fellow player to react to. The audience will never know. For example, when Dotty, playing her character of Mrs. Clackett, dropped a plate, shattering on the stage, I really had no idea if the actual breakage was in the script, or not.

You can’t do Noises Off without an experienced and quick witted cast, and director Tobin Hissong and casting director Thalia Schramm assembled the right group. Rusty Mewha as Frederick Fellowes is lanky and prone to nose-bleeds. Think a vulnerable version of John Cleese. Derek Ridge is the perfect English fop, exasperated and nervous and delivering his Britishisms with flair. Hellmer is well placed as the sardonic and sarcastic director who manages to have affairs with both sex-pot Brooke Ashton (Tara Tomcsik-Husak) and stage manager Poppy Norton-Taylor (Chris Purchis) in the same run, while even leading ol’ Dotty to think he may be interested in her as well. Julia Garlotte holds her own well in the comedic acrobatics as actress Belinda Blair playing character Flavia Brent, the wife of Mewha’s Philip Brent character. Every farce needs a couple of sleepy dullards, and Dale Dobson as Selsdon Mowbray and Keith Kalinowski as set-and-prop man Tim Algood are spot on.

It’s tough to single out praise for individual actors in this show, because the whole thing has to work like the game Moustrap. It’s all about the ensemble. Katz-Hiller, though, as Dotty is able to galvanize the audience at times just by puckering her lips and squinting her eyes as her character bristles at being reduced to dancing with a plate of sardines that is somehow made central to the plot of “Nothing On.” Tomcsik-Husak is hard to miss in her lingerie, and she turns looking for her contacts into a recurring gag that doesn’t get old amidst the opening and closing of seven doors on the set, disappearing luggage and swinging axes.

The set, by Jennifer Maiseloff, was ambitious and it worked great. The crew managed to turn the whole structure in 15 minutes. Two intermissions may sound tiresome, but the pace, energy and raucousness of the work on stage makes the total 2.5 hours fly by.

Noises Off rollicks, rolls and ricochets the laughs, and will take you to a better place for an evening.

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