Barn Theatre scores with ‘Noises Off’
AUGUSTA, Mich.–There’s nothing quite like a British farce for pure, meaningless entertainment that will go over the top to make its audiences laugh.
Noises Off, now playing at the Augusta Barn for a one-week engagement, is a classic in the genre and the star-studded Barn cast is determined to present a feel-good show that will help its audiences leave all the stress of the day behind.
Not that the characters are stress-free. In this Michael Frayn comedy, a hapless troupe of actors try to put on a show that is doomed from the very beginning. Plagued with an awful script, doors that don’t work, mediocre actors and a frustrated director, these British characters try to make a show work despite their in-fighting and backstage antics.
The show opens with a weary maid entering the stage played by Barn leading lady Penelope Alex. She does an excellent job of portraying the actress who can’t remember her lines or her stage directions, no small thing for an actress who has far more talent than the one she is playing. Alex did a delightful job of not only setting the stage for the rest of the farce, but of raising the stakes every time she came on.
Robert Newman returns to the Barn for the second show this season. The role is entirely different in tone and demands, but he performs equally well. Newman, of Guiding Light soap fame, is the harried director who is trying to maintain too many love affairs and get through a never-ending dress rehearsal. Newman, like all the actors in this show, has fantastic comedic timing, something that is crucial to make this farce work.
Actors playing actors include Jonnie Carpathios, Melissa Cotton Hunter, Patrick Hunter, Andrea Arvanigian and John Jay Espino. Each have their own stereotypes that they play up, shining a light on the quirks that inhabit the theatrical world and exaggerating each of them to great comedic effect. From Hunter’s vacant stares and her character’s insistence at performing everything the exact same way—no matter the actors around her are doing, to Espino’s declarations and the way he stymies the director and other actors, every choice is a delightful one that is carried out throughout the show in a most committed manner.
Rounding out the cast is Barn favorite Samantha Rickard (who off stage is about to join the Ragotzy family that has run the Barn for 72 years) as the beleaguered stage manager Poppy and first-year apprentice Christian Edwards who is the overworked Tim, stage hand, understudy, and set builder. Both of them do yeoman jobs of portraying the abused backstage crew who are soon overwhelmed by the demanding director and the flaky actors.
Directed by Brendan Ragotzy, the show speeds through the night at a break-neck pace. He makes full use of Dusty Reed’s two-story set with its eight doors—a set that halfway through the show flips around so you can see the backstage. Ragotzy mines the humor of this 1982 farce, moving his performers about in antics that constantly increases the tension and the comedy until everything overflows in a huge fanfare of a final scene.
“Noises Off” is a demanding show and the Barn continues to impress with its ability to pull a show off with very short rehearsal times, especially one as technically demanding as this one. The evening is one of pure laughter and entertainment, well worth the drive to Augusta.