‘Noises’ leaves audience in stitches New Surry troupe proves deft at farce

“Doors and sardines,” director Lloyd Dallas tells the cast of “Nothing On,” the sex farce at the center of the play-within-a-play “Noises Off.” “That’s what it’s about. That’s farce, that’s theater, that’s life.”

And that’s wet-your-pants funny in the hands of the New Surry Theatre Company. My stomach muscles still ache from last Thursday’s performance of Michael Frayn’s hilarious hit, which had me laughing so hard I was gasping for breath.

“Noises Off” follows the cast of a touring theater company that goes from mediocre to horrible somewhere between Des Moines, Iowa, and Pittsburgh, Penn. As passions and rivalries heat up offstage, an inane British sex farce turns into something that stinks worse than the ubiquitous plates of sardines onstage. The downfall of “Nothing On” fuels the madcap “Noises Off.”

The script demands much from the actors, and New Surry director Bill Raiten demanded even more. But the cast didn’t get tied up in the challenge of dual roles, exact timing and intense physical comedy. They pulled off the whole shebang seamlessly – sticking doors, slithering sardines and all.

As the stammering young actor Gary Lejeune, Ben Layman was, well, um, you know … fabulous. His ankle-biting, butt-kicking slapstick delivery made The Three Stooges look mildly amusing. Cindy Robbins shone in the role of Gary’s sardine-slinging, cast-hopping older lover, Dotty Otley. Her Gawd-oowful British accent was perfectly over-the-top.

The rest of the cast faded in and out of their accents during the “Nothing On” portion of the performance, but they were mostly in, and when they were out, it wasn’t enough to distract the audience.

Of course, with Brooke Ashton frolicking around in a black teddy, many people weren’t focusing on the accents. The role was played wonderfully, and with quite a bit of chutzpah, by the lovely Jenny Bragdon. Brooke also attracts the attention of the two-timing director Lloyd Dallas, who is also having an affair with his stage manager, Poppy Norton-Taylor. Dennis Harrington is slick and convincing in the role of Lloyd, and Amy Brummit Spaulding is sweetly harried in her stage debut as Poppy.

As stagehand Tim Allgood, the young Alec Aman was endearing and innocent, while the hard-of-hearing Selsdon Mowbray (Bruce Reddy) drew belly laughs for his crusty drunken antics. Dwayne Kent, a tall, soft-spoken man, played Frederick Fellowes with just the right amount of naivete. While Monique Gibouleau played the perfect foil as the doting (and quite gossipy) Belinda Blair.

The two-sided, two-story set was amazing, sophisticated and huge, like the production itself. But the little touches added a lot to the play as well, like when Harrington sat in the audience barking out orders at his cast. It brought the crowd into the play early. And though the third act dragged a little at first, the play didn’t really let the audience go until the last line.

This is clearly a group that can roll with the punches. Gibouleau didn’t let an unplanned doorknob problem hamper her performance. Instead, she ad-libbed her way through it so well that anyone who didn’t know the script wouldn’t have guessed there was anything amiss.

Because, as Lloyd Dallas would have us believe, that’s theater. Doors and sardines – and doorknobs. That’s life.