‘Noises Off’ @ Dallas Theater Center

Production photos by Karen Almond; promotional photos by Jordan Fraker

—Martha Heimberg

What a farce!

I’m not talking about the craziness of our current administration—the late shows own those laughs.

I mean Dallas Theater Center’s hilarious, gravity-prone production of Noises Off, Michael Frayn’s now-classic 1982 play (within a play) about a fictional English bedroom farce. As it was, is, and shall be forever, the show is replete with jammed doors, dropped pants, and a cast of hapless wannabes and determined has-beens on a groan-and-bear-it tour of the British “sticks”—towns far away from any big-city theatrical competition. The revolving stage at the Kalita Humphreys Theater was made for just such non-stop fun.

Directed by Ashley H. White with gathering momentum and a keen sense of timing, the show delivers plenty of belly laughs and pratfalls. Slapstick hits the funny bone! Plus, we come away with a deeper comic sympathy for these striving players in an increasingly out-of-control muddle of a production. All the world’s a stage, right? Hey, just getting the sardines on and off stage at the right time, in one running joke, is a good start! There’s a helpful program within the program, with cast and bios for the play they’re touring (it’s called Nothing On), so you don’t get too confused about which farce you’re watching. And Todd Rosenthal’s handsome Tudor-stye country home set has a long, made-for-tumbling staircase (you start grinning the minute you see it), and enough doors for not one, but two farces. Of course.

In Act I, we meet the struggling troupe in dress rehearsal, bungling lines, missing cues and trying to polish their swoons and laugh lines. At the very least, they hope to get on and off stage without crashing into each other. Their director Lloyd Dallas (Alex Organ in weary womanizer mode) is close to the edge of despair: it’s not that far to go, really, once you meet his cast and crew.

Aging Brit-com actress Dotty Otley (classy Liz Mikel, who delivers dazed and confused like the pro she is) plays a tired housekeeper in a country cottage who’s trying to take the afternoon off—if only the rehearsal, and the play, could get past the first scene. Garry Lejeune (high-voltage leading man Pierre Tannous) keeps asking for a deeper motivation for carrying all these boxes offstage—while also posing as the cottage owner, in hopes of getting sexpot Brooke Ashton (smiling hussy played by Molly Searcy) down to her red bra and panties.

Former TV actor Freddy Fellowes (versatile Esteban Vilchez, smiling through income tax panic) has trouble with costume changes. Touring veteran Belinda Blair (shameless hambone Tiffany Solano) has kept her figure over the years, and upstages everybody to flaunt her curves. Selsdon Mowbray (staggeringly funny Bob Hess) as the burglar is nearly deaf and a little senile, but can smell a bottle of whiskey from the back row.

Lloyd’s entire crew consists of overworked company/stage manager Tim Allgood (maniacally mighty Christian Torres) plus assistant stage manager and posh school dropout Poppy Norton-Taylor. (Christina Austin Lopez plays her funny-pouty.) How will Lloyd ever get this show on the road?

Frayn’s genius for farce hits new levels at mid-play. When we come back for Act II, the show has been touring for a month, and the stage has revolved to reveal a marvelously detailed backstage set with the rear sides of doors, sturdy scaffolding going every whichway—the better to chase you with, my dear. We have fun observing the mechanics of making lights, props and curtains go up and down to create a world for the live theater performance. And here are the real live actors playing real live actors (not their onstage characters), whispering about who’s sleeping with who, trying to change costumes in three minutes, chugging water or whatever, and maybe doing a little deep breathing in the midst of a nervous breakdown.

Oh, and if you suddenly see a colleague hugging your main squeeze, you just might go into a fit of jealous rage. Backstage, there’s always an axe handy.

As the title says, the rul is “noises off” when you’re not onstage, so we see everyone miming their emotions, and belly-scooting as they cross beneath the wide walk-in window at stage center—just barely able to contain their cries and shouts, as we laugh ourselves silly (and happy) at what hilarious fools we mortals be.

Act III is played with a short pause and no intermission, and we’re back to stage front with our troupers, still performing a few weeks later — but just barely keeping it together. This act belongs to Organ, as the director who’s totally had it with this bunch, and a cast that shares the same feeling toward him. Back atcha, Lloyd. Revenge is a hoot.

The physicality and timing required of the cast and crew throughout requires topnotch teamwork—and it came together beautifully on opening night. The speed and style of slapstick includes the audience laughter that propels the action to the next tumble. We also serve who only sit and guffaw.

[Wellness note: Laughter is great for the body, and the soul is lifted to be part of such happy cooperation! Let live theater ring.]

Kudos to costume, wig and makeup designer Aaron Patrick DeClerk; lighting designer Jessica Ann Drayton; sound designer Claudia Jenkins Martinez; and fight & intimacy director Rob Aronowitz.

Dialect Coach Anne Schilling gives the actors enough British accent to broaden a few a’s, but most speak as if they’ve maybe toured in America more than once.

WHEN: October 3-26, 2025
WHERE: Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd., Dallas
WEB: dallastheatercenter.org