Noises Off to be beautiful chaos
It’s a show that’s been described by the cast as a ‘‘disaster’’. What starts out bad, gets predominantly worse.
But it’s a play-within-a-play you wouldn’t want to miss.
Hamilton Playbox will perform Michael Frayn’s Noises Off this month, which takes a fond look at the follies of theatre folk.
Directed by Lawrie Johnson, the show stars seasoned Hamilton actors in - ironically - probably, their worst role to date.
‘‘There’s really good bad acting in it and bad acting is hard,’’ cast member Steven Gray said.
Gray plays Lloyd Dallas, a director who’s at the end of his tether.
‘‘He’s got no time. It’s 12 o’clock, they open the next night and the actors can’t remember their dialogue.
‘‘It takes you out of yourself. It’s laught-out-loud funny, and I think everyone needs that at the moment,’’ he said.
Noises Off tells the story of a touring theatre troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance, and a performance towards the end of a debilitating run.
Conor Maxwell plays Freddy, and he and co-star Kelly Petersen spend the majority of their time on stage in their underwear. He said it was fun to play a character attempting to play a character.
‘‘My character is a husband and he’s worried about taxes and the actual character I play is an idiot who gets nosebleeds a lot and doesn’t understand anything.
‘‘My main prop is a handkerchief and my most common line is ‘I’m sorry’,’’ he said.
‘‘The whole play is just things going wrong, so it’s really funny when things accidentally go right or they go more wrong.’’
The cast describe Noises Off as a farce, and agree that Act Three is - put simply - chaos, but that it is beautiful to watch.
‘‘I really like the camaraderie that you’re forced to have for one another in farce. You need to know that everyone else is going to do the right thing at the right time otherwise the whole thing will just collapse,’’ Nick Wilkinson, who plays Gary, said.
Thirty years ago, Adam White played the old man in the same play. Now he’s been as a youth called Tim. He hopes Noises Off will leave people with a stomach ache and sore cheeks.
Noises Off, running from Friday, September 22 - Saturday, October 7 at the Riverlea Theatre. Tickets: www.iticket.co.nz