For sheer belly laughs, it’s hard to beat “Noises Off,” a hilarious farce by British playwright Michael Frayn that opens Wednesday at the Seattle Repertory Theatre.
“The funniest comedy ever written” was one critic’s succinct summation of the play, which debuted in 1982 and has gone on to earn classic status on the world’s stages.
Here’s the setup. An acting company is performing a sad-sack British sex farce titled “Nothing On.” But backstage there’s a real-life farce unfolding among a squabbling bunch of actors whose rapid descent into comic mayhem unfolds with an escalation of visual and verbal gags.
A rotating set reveals the on-stage performance of “Nothing On” and the behind-the-scenes slapstick, with the actors making split-second entrances and exits. There are pratfalls, floors made slippery by sardines, an ax-wielding character or two, slamming doors, mistaken identities: all the ingredients of farce.
It’s a workout for the actors, but it’s a riot for the audiences.
“Most of the time in farce, the characters are in hell but the audience is in heaven,” director Richard Seyd said. And that’s the case in “Noises Off.”
“By the third act the audience is exhausted,” he said.
Seyd talked about challenges of “Noises Off” with its tricky staging and lightning-quick timing as the action spins faster and faster.
“It’s very intense and very funny,” he said. “You cannot let a single moment go by without working it out.”
Seyd has staged the play numerous times and knows the author, so he is comfortable in shaping the original work somewhat.
Some productions go for too many laughs in the first act, the director said. He prefers a more measured pace, building the relationships and then lighting the fuse that erupts into comic mayhem in the final act.
“It’s the king of farce,” Seyd said. “The way I describe it is doing Ibsen on speed.”
Theater for kids: Musical stage adaptations of two popular children’s books play this weekend in Everett.
The Village Theatre’s Pied Piper performing arts series is presenting a jazz-inspired version of “Corduroy,” Don Freeman’s story about a lonely girl who finds a friend in a department store teddy bear. The show plays Saturday.
Sunday brings “Laura Ingalls Wilder: Growing Up on the Prairie,” a musical retelling of the Ingalls family as they travel across the prairie in search of the little house they can call home.
Both shows are presented as matinees at the Everett Performing Arts Center and are a continuation of the Pied Piper series of stage shows aimed at young children. These are touring productions, performed by companies that specialize in plays for kids.
“Corduroy” is performed by TheatreworksUSA and is aimed at children up to third grade. Eight-year-old Lisa is lonely and looking for a friend when she discovers a department store teddy berry in green overalls. Corduroy is looking for something too – a missing button – and how these two lost souls connect is the heart of the story.
The ArtsPower National Touring Theatre presents “Growing Up on the Prairie,” a musical based on the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This show, aimed at youngsters in grades three through six, follows Laura and the Ingalls family as they set out across the unsettled American Midwest in the 1800s and the troubles they face along the way.
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