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Noises Off
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Themes
The Repetition and Doubling Involved in Farce
The farce of Noises Off is created not only by physical comedy and precise timing but also through repetition and doubling. This is especially due to Frayn’s play-within-a-play structure—which invites parallels—and the rolling repetition of Nothing On through the three acts of Noises Off. Instances of repetition include the same lines being said by multiple people and multiple meanings of the same line, such as puns and double entendres. Doubling is seen both in scripted mistaken identities in Nothing On and in parallelisms in Noises Off, including different actors going on as understudies. This multiplicity leads to many comical moments as Frayn plays with the audience’s expectations and with the tricks of language. This formal and stylistic game playing is essential to the play’s satirical and parodic functions.
One of the most farcical moments of Noises Off is when three people deliver the monologue of the burglar together. In Act III, Tim goes on as Selsdon’s understudy and begins the monologue: “No bars. No burglar alarms. They ought to be prosecuted for incitement” (164). Then, Frederick repeats the burglar’s cue, and Selsdon finally appears, repeating the same lines. They begin to say the following lines of the monologue together: “When I remember I used to do bullion vaults!” (165). Once again, Frederick repeats the cue, and the third burglar is Lloyd. All three say the lines together, and this calls back to Act I when Lloyd insists that Tim order “[t]wo spare Burglar costumes […] [He] want[s] a plentiful supply of spare Burglars on hand for any eventuality” (31). The characters use all the costumes as the absurdity increases. A burglar is supposed to break into a house when no one is there, part of the farcical joke of Nothing On in which a large number of characters believe the house to be empty. The Noises Off farce proliferates this with yet another burglar, as well as with the rest of the cast on stage, parodying the farce of Nothing On.
In addition to doubling lines from the script on stage, lines from backstage are doubled. Tim and Poppy both give the same, unscripted announcements about how the show is about to begin. When Tim repeats the final call, Poppy says, “I’ve done it, I’ve done it!” (90). The way she alerts Tim to the repetition about the announcements is itself repetitive. The farce comes from them not communicating about the calls before repeating them and building on that repetition. The way it builds from repeating the call to repeating the fact that the call has already been done can be compared to how the burglar’s monologue builds up to a chorus with multiple actors giving it.
Frayn also uses doubling in scripted and unscripted sexual innuendos that are meant to be funny in themselves but also send up the nature of the English bedroom farce and its reliance on sexual taboos. As a stereotypical bedroom farce, the script of Nothing On has many innuendos, especially from Roger about his relationship with Vicki. Adding to this is Frederick’s unintentional double entendre. He says to Brooke, “If you don’t feel up to performing I’m sure Poppy would always be happy to have a bash on your behalf” (89). On the surface level, he is talking about Poppy going on as Brooke’s understudy. The innuendo lurking underneath is that Poppy could stand in for Brooke sexually, with Lloyd. This creates dramatic irony through the layering of meanings between Nothing On and Noises Off.
At the very end of the play, everyone demands that Selsdon deliver the “[l]ast line, last line!” (168). This is the culmination of a repeated joke that Selsdon always forgets the last line, emblematic of the theater company’s inability to reach the end of Nothing On. In this final iteration, this repetitive request is repeated by all the cast and crew and is by now very familiar to the audience. This creates a sense of conclusion that parodies the characters’ desperate wish to get to the end of the play. From the structure of a play within a play down to the sentence-level wordplay, Frayn’s farce uses repetition and doubling to create tension and comedy.
The Relationship Between Personal and Professional Lives of Actors
Noises Off is a social satire that especially lampoons actors and the acting life. By creating two plays, Frayn’s structure invites comparison between the actor-characters when they are acting—in Nothing On—and when they are “themselves”—in Noises Off. This explodes the artifice of the theater and asks questions about the sincerity of characters, both on and off stage.
Parodying the bedroom farce subject of Nothing On, Noises Off uses sex as a means to complicate the play’s characters and relationships. Frayn creates two love triangles that negatively impact the company’s performances. One love triangle is between Dotty, Garry, and Frederick; the other is between Lloyd, Brooke, and Poppy. Their backstage interpersonal drama results in not being able to accurately present Nothing On. Instead, they present a farcical interpretation inspired by Lloyd’s love triangle by the end of Noises Off. This is a parodic reversal in which “art imitates life” through the characters’ desperate improvisations and in which the framing action of Noises Off and the fictional action of Nothing On become telescoped. This ending encapsulates the play’s blurring of the professional and personal roles of the actors.
Garry and Dotty are a happy couple during the rehearsal in Act I, but they do not remain a happy couple after the show goes on the road, and this profoundly affects their performances. In rehearsal, Lloyd is amused to learn of the backstage romance between the characters “Tramplemain and Mrs. Clackett” (35). These characters are not involved romantically with one another on stage in Nothing On; the absurdity of their characters pairing up entertains Lloyd. However, Dotty has a fling with a journalist a couple weeks before Act II and has drinks with Frederick the night before Act II. Garry responds to these events with a murderous rage. Frederick thinks that Garry “[i]s saying he want[s] to kill [him]” (82). Garry’s rage is heightened by various interactions that appear to be romantic gestures because they are done in silence backstage. Because of various circumstances, like discovering whiskey bottles and looking for contacts, Dotty looks like she is being embraced by Frederick, Selsdon, and Lloyd. Garry’s reactions to these moments range from threatening people with an axe to spilling sardines on Dotty’s head. The most disruptive act that Garry performs in his jealous rage is tying the sheets that Frederick and Brooke wear together, which ruins the rest of the costume changes in the show.
Dotty’s performance is impacted by Garry’s backstage actions, as well as by seeing Garry in a potentially sexual situation. Dotty appears backstage “just in time to see Belinda with her arms round Garry” (109). This misunderstanding mirrors that of Flavia in Nothing On, creating a parallel between the onstage and offstage treatment of sexual jealousy. Belinda is trying to get the axe away from Garry, but it looks like they are sharing a romantic moment. Dotty is initially more professional than Garry because “she’s got money in the show” (80). She has invested her own savings in the company. Garry’s antics at first only cause Dotty “to weep” (99), but seeing him with Belinda causes Dotty to become vengeful and tie Garry’s shoelaces together.
The other love triangle between Lloyd, Poppy, and Brooke is established in Act I, but it is only revealed to those women at the end of that act, creating dramatic irony. The two women are unaware that they are dating the same man until the rest of the cast reveals it while gossiping during a break in rehearsal. This prurient gossip is part of the social satire of Noises Off, created by interrogating the “real” behavior of the actor-characters when off stage. This drama is heightened in Act II when Lloyd gets messages “from Brooke about how unhappy she is here and now she’s got herself a doctor’s certificate for nervous exhaustion” (80). Lloyd comes to the performance in Act II to try to keep Brooke from leaving the show. However, Poppy has also been messaging him, trying to tell him that she is pregnant with his baby. This is revealed at the end of Act II, resulting in Poppy saying the word “baby” when she should be giving Selsdon the word “sardines” for the final line of Nothing On’s first act. Lloyd’s interpersonal issues take center stage at the play’s conclusion, when Belinda decides to improvise a wedding between Lloyd and Brooke, to which Dotty adds Poppy, at the end of Act III. This is completely unconnected to the script. The actors do not present the play, a sex farce, as it was written because of their own personal sex farces. That the final joke is destroyed by the director’s philandering among the cast is key to Frayn’s social satire and his critique of unprofessionalism in acting life.
Theater Reflecting Life’s Own Absurdities and Complexities
The third theme that Frayn explores in Noises Off is the comic connection between real life and the theater. Farce as a genre relies heavily on the absurd and is traditionally a means to explore social themes and tensions by parodying real life. In Noises Off, the actors’ attempts to accurately present the script of Nothing On become increasingly absurd. By creating two levels of theatrical artifice, Frayn multiplies the play’s opportunities to find meanings in comparisons between the real and unreal levels. Frayn makes the connection between life and the theater explicit in Act I when Lloyd says, “If we can just get through the play once tonight for doors and sardines. Getting on—getting off. Getting the sardines on—getting the sardines off. That’s farce. That’s the theatre. That’s life” (26-27). Tim, like Lloyd, explicitly mentions farce, but in a description of real-life events, rather than a philosophical treatise on life. Belinda explains that both Poppy and Tim can’t go on as understudies because there would be no one backstage to prompt actors with the script and make sure the technical aspects of the show are running smoothly. Tim responds by saying, “This is getting farcical” (82). The real-life drama between Garry and Dotty might result in needing both of their doubles to go on for them. Their love triangle is farcical in terms of casting and direction.
In particular, comedy is created by the actors’ focus on the mechanics of the Nothing On farce rather than on its meanings: They are overstretched merely to put on the play functionally. Many of the Nothing On jokes rely on actors being in very specific places. Humans also have to move around food and other items in order to survive. This is reflected in how actors have to move props around for the purposes of comedy. Life being a comedy is the foundation of Lloyd’s argument. After all the actors have entered and exited incorrectly, resulting in everyone being on stage at the same time, Belinda channels Lloyd’s philosophy about life. In Act I, she responds to Lloyd’s monologue by saying, “Oh Lloyd, you’re so deep” (27). In Act III, when the script is in ruins, Belinda comes back to Lloyd’s deep thoughts. She interprets his vague gestures as him “saying—just get through it for doors and sardines! Yes? That’s what it’s all about!” (166). Farce, and life, are no longer about precision but about going through the motions. Divergence from the farce in Nothing On reaches new levels of absurdity unintended by its—fictional—playwright.
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