STAGE REVIEWS : ‘NOISES OFF’

There is an abundant supply of laughs in “Noises Off” at Laguna Moulton Playhouse. Anyone who has ever been involved in the theater will be especially tickled by Michael Frayn’s blissfully ridiculous paean to the British farce. But although this production boasts of a knockout cast that’s ready, willing and able to reduce the audience to Jell-O, it often proceeds too cautiously, failing to achieve the sense of madness that the play deserves.

In this Rube Goldbergian play-within-a-play, Frayn has taken aim at all the nonsensical elements of the British farce, and he has scored a bull’s-eye. In three acts, we are treated--or subjected--to an absolutely horrid British farce as presented by an utterly hopeless British theater troupe touring the British hinterlands. The first act is the dress rehearsal, the second takes place during a performance as seen from backstage and the third depicts a performance near the end of the tour as the casts’ tempers and insecurities offstage wreak havoc on stage.

Craig Fleming’s steady direction skillfully navigates the rapids in the script, and even in its most hysterical moments, the focus is on storytelling and character development. However, this controlled approach, although it provides a solid base for the comedy, is too circumspect to do full justice to Frayn’s mad sensibility, and it tends to deplete the momentum. Here, the frustration does not build believably--there’s little sense of cause and effect for the characters’ actions, little sense of the surreal behind the fever pitch of the third act.

But Fleming’s cast is fabulous. David Snow is the essence of childish buffoonery as the oppressively charming young leading man; George Woods neatly fills in all the corners of the sophisticated what’s-a-nice-director-like-me-doing-with-a-bomb-like-this director, and Holly Atkinson is painfully believable as the vacant ingenue with an errant contact lens. Teri Ciranna’s knowing approach to the character actress works wonderfully well, and David S. Lewis is inspired as the simpleton who plays the ubiquitous husband-caught-with-his-pants-down. George Pelling’s graceful dignity as the old alcoholic thespian and Louise Griffin-Rodecker’s sensible edge as the never-say-die leading lady nicely color their characters’ comic virtues. As the company’s well-meaning stage managers, Bob Cady and Cynthia Walker are perfect studies in ill-concealed panic.

Steven Wolff Craig’s scuffed-up set and David Challis’ flat lighting amusingly evoke the lot of the touring troupe. And special note must be made of stage managers Lorece Toft and Martin Ransford, who accomplish what must be an exceedingly difficult assignment with apparent ease.

“Noises Off” will play through June 22, then resume performances July 10 through Aug. 2 at Laguna Moulton Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. For information, call (714) 494-0743.