Noises Off...

A comedy adapted from Michael Frayn's stage play. The subject is a theatre company on tour. The play they are performing is a simple door farce; the problem is the actors. The director is involved with two of the cast, the lead drinks, one keeps forgetting lines, and the tension in the group grows with every performance. The structure is in three parts. First we watch the final rehearsal. Then the same play is shown from behind the set, from the wings, where behind the order the audience sees, the actors block each other, fight, and have to do it silently. In the third part, at the end of the tour, the play falls apart completely. The comedy comes from the same text repeated three times, more broken each time. Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Denholm Elliott, John Ritter and Christopher Reeve are in the cast. Peter Bogdanovich directed. An enjoyable adaptation for anyone who likes stage comedy and comedies built like machines. For a viewer expecting film language, it preserves the play's theatrical structure and takes place almost entirely in one location.