If broad British farce is your preferred cup of Earl Grey, you won’t want to miss San Francisco Playhouse’s production of Michael Frayn’s 1982 “Noises Off.”
It must be difficult to keep a 40-plus-year-old slapstick comedy fresh, but the show onstage through Nov. 8, SF Playhouse’s 23rd season opener, meets the challenge on almost all counts.
A predecessor of this century’s popular “The Play That Goes Wrong,” “Noises Off”— showcasing a play within a play about a touring troupe’s production of a farce called ‘Noises On’—moves from fractured dress rehearsal to complete theatrical bomb in just over two hours of near mayhem.
Onstage, the actors muff their lines, trip over each other and make dozens of breathless exits and entrances while proclaiming their affection for each other: “Yes, my love.”
Offstage it is a different matter: envy, jealousy and downright loathing present a darker side, all of it richly comical to a high degree. Even if you don’t want to laugh you just can’t help it; at a recent performance, there wasn’t a stiff upper lip in the house.
“Noises Off” is inhabited by usual suspects: the male heartthrob (Joe Ayers), the worldly, glamorous actress (Liz Sklar), the high-strung thespian (Nima Rakhshanifar), a pair of once celebrated bygones (Julie Eccles and Louis Parnell), a brassy hardly clad ingenue (Sophie Alawi) and a hysterical director (Patrick Russell).
Bill English’s staging in the Tudor-like country house where performances take place (set by Heather Kenyon) is snap on, and Abra Berman’s costumes are appropriately goofy.
But what really brings this show to its humorous high is the chemistry of the cast. Their exuberance is catching and their unabashed commitment to silliness.
“Noises Off” runs through Nov. 8 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco. Tickets are $52 to $145 at sfplayhouse.org.
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