Some plays make you think. Others make you feel. And then there are those rare, exquisite gems that make you laugh so hard your face aches. Noises Off at the Geffen Playhouse belongs unequivocally to the latter category—a meticulously orchestrated catastrophe of such dazzling ineptitude that it left the audience breathless with laughter from beginning to end.

Michael Frayn’s 1982 farce is a love letter to the theater’s inherent mayhem, peeling back the curtain on a hopelessly dysfunctional acting troupe attempting, with waning hope and increasing desperation, to stage the ill-fated Nothing On. Under the astute direction of Anna D. Shapiro, this co-production between the Geffen Playhouse and Steppenwolf Theatre Company embraces every pratfall, every mistimed entrance, and every gloriously ill-fated cue with surgical precision, delivering a performance so masterfully chaotic that it seems almost reckless.

Noises Off is comedy at its most sublime, a gleefully anarchic spectacle that captures both the agony and the ecstasy of live theater…An unmissable triumph

For the uninitiated, Noises Off unfurls in three acts, each offering a fresh vantage point on the play’s spectacular disintegration. Act One deposits us at a final dress rehearsal, a symphony of misplaced props, forgotten lines, and rising tempers that makes opening night seem less an inevitability than an act of delusional optimism. Act Two, in a stroke of theatrical genius, flips the set—literally—revealing the frenetic backstage pandemonium that fuels the onstage disaster. By Act Three, when the set has revolved once more to return us to the audience’s perspective, what remains of Nothing On is little more than a smoking ruin of missed cues, broken illusions, and sublime absurdity.

The ensemble cast is a tour de force, executing Frayn’s intricate ballet of comedic misfortune with unerring precision. Ora Jones is a delightfully bewildered Dotty Otley, forever juggling sardines and exasperation as the production’s Cockney housekeeper. David Lind’s Garry Lejeune embodies the perfect storm of bravado and ineptitude, launching himself across the stage with equal parts conviction and impending disaster. Amanda Fink’s Brooke Ashton, the hapless ingénue perpetually losing both her contact lenses and her grasp on reality, is a masterclass in oblivious self-absorption. Audrey Francis’s Belinda Blair, the all-knowing backstage confidante, and Rick Holmes’s Lloyd Dallas, the exasperated director clinging desperately to the wreckage of his production, complete a cast that understands the delicate art of making calamity look effortless.

The revolving set—an indispensable player in its own right—functions with an ironic efficiency unmatched by anything occurring within the play. Its seamless transformations between acts are nothing short of theatrical alchemy, granting the audience the rare pleasure of seeing both sides of the chaos, in a manner that feels at once voyeuristic and deeply cathartic.

The rapid-fire dialogue, the inexorable escalation of absurdity, and the mounting sense of theatrical entropy all coalesce into a crescendo of comedic brilliance that had the audience howling in their seats. It is a production that reaffirms just how punishingly difficult great comedy is to execute—and how transcendent it is when done right.

By the time the final act collapsed in glorious disarray, the standing ovation felt less like a tradition and more like a necessity. Noises Off is comedy at its most sublime, a gleefully anarchic spectacle that captures both the agony and the ecstasy of live theater. For those who revel in the mechanics of farce, cherish the art of perfectly timed catastrophe, or simply yearn for the kind of laughter that leaves one gasping for air, this is an unmissable triumph.

— Rosane Grimberg

Noises Off at the Geffen Theater through March 9th. More information at https://www.geffenplayhouse.org/