MICHAEL FRAYN'S "Noises Off" was a witty, slapsticky,
quintessentially British play-within-a-play, about a traveling stage
show in which everything that could go wrong did. Now, along comes
"Noises Off," Touchstone Pictures' Americanized version, which tempts
disaster at every turn.
Instead of British performers in a touring show headed for imminent
disaster, the movie's about a troupe of American stage actors in a
touring show that's bound for Broadway. The cast has only two Brits --
Michael Caine and Denholm Elliott. It features five TV sitcom or soap
actors, including Carol Burnett, John Ritter and Marilu Henner. It even
has Christopher Reeve, possibly the dullest actor of our time. To flirt
further with box-office death, the movie's directed by Peter
Bogdanovich, whose last success was "The Last Picture Show" in 1971.
Yet the movie, when it finally gets going, is funny. At times it's
hysterical. The great discovery about "Noises Off" is how tried and
tested Frayn's basic formula is. The physical, verbal and situation
comedy is universal, no matter who the performers. What counts in this
ensemble production is the collective choreography, the great farce
machine. In the movie, everyone, Reeve included, more than plays his
part.
Burnt-out stage director Caine, his Valium always close at hand, is
in charge of a touring British sex farce called "Nothing On." Not only
must he survive a schedule that includes Des Moines, Cleveland and
countless other boonie stops, he has to monitor a cast of bickerers,
incompetents, whiners and buffoons.
As the movie opens, the cast is going through a tense "tech
rehearsal" just hours before their Des Moines debut. Housekeeper Burnett
can't remember to take the plate of sardines offstage and leave the
phone onstage. Bimbo secretary Nicolette Sheridan keeps losing a contact
lens. Hard-of-hearing, usually besotted Elliott keeps missing his cue.
Reeve wants to know his precise motivation for clutching a bag of
groceries . . .
"And on we merrily go," says an exasperated Caine, after yet another
petty interruption.
Actually, this rehearsal is the last opportunity to see how "Nothing
On" should really play -- sort of. When one cog goes loose in this farce
-- from a missing plate of sardines to a missed cue -- everything goes
wrong. Everything, of course, does. "Nothing On" becomes a roadshow of
missed entrances, jammed stage doors and backstage warfare. When one
actor is angry at another, the vengeful possibilities are endless.
Ritter comes onstage to find his shoelaces have been tied together.
After a backstage fight, Burnett is propelled onstage by an unidentified
foot; two characters dressed as Arab sheiks find their robes are
attached.
The beginning's a little slow, and all those bad shows start to blur
after a while. Seen one catastrophe, seen 'em all. Also, the ending's a
mundane, contrived affair, an entirely inappropriate conclusion to this
theatrical world of ongoing failure. But there's more than enough
laughter to ignore that. "Noises," with the help of Bogdanovich and
crew, brings back the ageless joy of well-timed slapstick.
NOISES OFF (PG-13) --
Area theaters.
