A Joyful Noise: On & Off @ Theatre Arlington

Added Performance due to sell-out crowds: January 29, 6pm!!!!!

“One day I must write a farce from behind,” exclaimed British playwright Michael Frayn in 1970, while watching a light comedy he wrote for Lynn Redgrave unfold from backstage, where “it was funnier.” In 1982 his celebrated farce Noises Off emerged, its title referring to offstage sound cues. Guaranteed box office gold for professional and community theatres alike on both sides of the Atlantic for many years, it has undergone multiple revisions to stay relevant and interesting for contemporary audiences.

Theatre Arlington’s current production of Noises Off uses the most recent update, directed handily by Andy Baldwin. It presents a well-orchestrated melee in three mindless, pratfall-filled vignettes, revealing different perspectives of “Act I” of a hapless sex comedy called Nothing On: in its final dress rehearsal out front, at a dismal matinee performance from backstage, and out front near…