‘Noises’ a light-hearted comedy

Throughout "Noises Off" -- the popular Michael Frayn farce about a second-rate British theater troupe trying to put together and sustain a touring show -- you get the impression there's not a second of playing time that hasn't been carefully worked out. Master of Fine Arts director Kenn McLeod and cast achieve a precision in body movement, attitudes, entrances and exits that put you in the mood to laugh.

Act 1 is a rehearsal of a trifle called "Nothing On." Actors hysterically miss cues, forget props, fight with a director whose voice booms from speakers. Act 2 takes us backstage weeks after opening. While the show is being performed we witness the chaos that has developed due to messy personal relationships. Act III places us back out front well into the production's run. To put it mildly, the product has deteriorated.

McLeod often finds the right playing attitude for this inspired nonsense. The actor characters seem deadly serious. Yet, their reality level is rooted in the heightened lunacy needed to pull this thing off.

Union actress Tracy Lore, as a performer portraying a housekeeper who's an unwilling witness to the amoral goings on in a country home, is likably coarse and attractive. Her considerable skill allows her to milk jokes without getting caught.

Undergrad Melody Wilson gives us a deliciously ditzy untrained thespian who wants so badly to be noticed that she delivers most her lines straight out to the audience. And union actor and faculty member Michael Tylo helps us understand why his aging character gets away with being a scatterbrained, alcoholic madman. Tylo's self-confident manner makes it unlikely that anyone would dare disrespect his grandeur, no matter how sloshed that grandeur may have become.

There are a several actors who haven't been able to submerge themselves into Frayn's world. And in the third act -- the only poorly written one -- McLeod crosses the line into unmotivated goofiness. For the first time, you see the actors working to achieve maniacal pacing.

There are so many belly laughs in the first two acts, though, that it may be a Herculean task to sustain the lunacy into a third. Still, I doubt that those seeking an intelligent, light-hearted evening will go home disappointed.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheater chat@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.