Noises Off
Farce at Barrington Stage Company
By: Charles Giuliano - Sep 03, 2026
Noises Off
By Michael Frayn
Directed by Gordon Greenberg
Barrington Stage Company
Boyd -Quinson Theatre
August 20 to September 6, 2026
Cast: Erin Davie (Belinda Blair), Abby Leigh Huffstetler (Poppy Norton-Taylor), Nehal Joshi (Garry Lejeune), Lesli Margherita (Dotty Otley), Orville Mendoza (Selsden Mowbray), James Joseph O’Neil (Frederick Fellowes), Geoff Packard (Lloyd Dallas), Jennifer Sanchez (Brooke Ashton), Evan Alexander Smith (Tim Allgood).
Scenic Co-Designers: Sotirios Livaditis and Todd Rosenthal; Costume Designer: Izumi Inaba; Associate Costume Designer: Megan E. Pirtle; Lighting Designer: Wheeler Moon; Associate Lighting Designer: Aidan English; Sound Designer: Connor Wang; Fight Choreographer: Jacob Grigolio-Rosenbaum; Associate Director and Production Stage Manager: Anjee Nero.
There’s something about sardines.
Hands down, Noises Off is the most hilarious comedy of the Berkshire Season. There are two options for the audience, laugh your guts out in your seat, or roll in the aisles.
Noises Off is a 1982 farce by the English playwright Michael Frayn (born 1933). Frayn conceived the idea in 1970 while watching from the wings a performance of The Two of Us, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave. He said, "It was funnier from behind than in front, and I thought that one day I must write a farce from behind." The prototype, a short-lived one-act play called Exits, was written and performed in 1977. At the request of his associate, Michael Codron, Frayn expanded this into what would become Noises Off. It takes its title from the theatrical stage direction indicating sounds coming from offstage.
It takes a village to produce this masterpiece of comedy. Barrington Stage Company has been up to the task with superb direction from Gordon Greenberg. On a tight summer schedule he has nailed the meticulous staging and timing of physical comedy and slap-stick. For that he was delivered a terrific cast meeting the challenge of flinging themselves helter skelter all over the stage. The energy this demands is truly astonishing.
The double set was particularly demanding to execute. The two-story, traditional, British country home created by scenic co-designers: Sotirios Livaditis and Todd Rosenthal has all the requisite slamming doors as well as a frequently broken large window which figures into the plot. This complex and meticulously detailed set is then rotated in the second act in which the performance is viewed from back stage. The designers deserve much of the credit for this astonishing production.
The fun begins with the deliciously nimble Lesli Margherita (Dotty Otley) seemingly alone in the mansion. The phone rings with a request to speak to the owner. In a thick Cockney accent she informs the caller that Philip Brent/ Freddie (James Joseph O’Neill) is now living in “Spayne.” He and his wife Belinda Blair (Erin Davie) are living abroad to avoid British taxes. It seems they are visiting their manse incognito.
All this, which will be repeated several times, comprises act one of a farce that is having a dress rehearsal set to open the next day in a provincial theatre. It’s temperamental, vexed director, Lloyd Dallas (Geoff Packard) approaches down an aisle and observes from in front of the stage. Rather than finish the job he is off to Wales to direct Richard III.
The leading man of Noises On the farce being staged is the smarmy Gary Lejeune (Nehal Joshi). In the seemingly abandoned mansion he wants to get it on with a bimbo Brooke Ashton (Jennifer Sanchez). They bang on a few doors looking for a place to make out. Through much of the comedy she is fairly inaudible parading around in her underwear.
In a snarling manner Joshi is dominating and a brilliant physical comedian. In the second act he executes a hilarious pratfall tumbling down stairs. It ends with his wig lurching forward to the delight of the audience.
There are three iterations of the opening of the play, two in the second act. They present the wheels coming off of a production that was never finalized. Abby Leigh Huffstetler (Poppy Norton Taylor), the stage manager and female understudy is more and more called on for line cues. She also gets entangled in the subplots.
In the second act, when the stage is reversed the mayhem hits the fan. We hear the play being enacted through the large, broken window. There is a lot of motion and commotion backstage and a trope is that actors must duck under being seen through that window. That engenders a lot of comical variation as roars of laughter reverberate through the theatre.
At the end of this performance I felt at least as exhausted as that remarkable cast.