Getting Back to Normal: 2022 Senior Play Noises Off Brings Laughter and Delight in the Season

- Ivy Liao

The 2022 senior play in the English department drew attention by choosing Michael Frayn’s 1982 Noises Off. Directed by Annalise Lin, performed at the Arens Muti-functional Conference Centre, with an ingenious theatrical design, Noises off ended three-days performance from December 8th to 10th to audience’s loud laughter and great applause, with cast and crew aiming to bring joy to the season and a sense of normality despite the ongoing pandemic.

Michael Frayn’s Noises Off is a play within a play. Temperamental director Loyd Dallas (played by Tina Chang) produces a comedy titled Nothing On with a mediocre, emotionally unstable cast and crew, including Poppy (played by Mia Jiang) and Timothy (played by Sylvia Chan) as the stage managers, Dotty (played by Claire Tai), Brooke (played by Sandy Lee), Belinda (played by Zoe Shin), Gary (played by Fillan Chen), and Fredrick (played by Ivan Zhang) as the actors and actresses performing in Nothing On. The three acts in Noises Off expose sequential phases of the rehearsal, its premiere, and the performance near the end of the tour. As the play unfolds, the mounting chaos causes a string of farces on stage and off stage.

Rehearsal Photo by Annalise Lin

“It is a challenge,” said Cecilia Liu, the faculty advisor of the 2022 senior play. “Cooperation is especially important in the production of Noises off, a play within a play. Not only acting performance but setting construction has to be in the right beats.” Shifting from the performance of Nothing On on the front stage to the antics backstage, the play requires a complex stage design. It challenges crew members to brainstorm a critical production of the design that audiences can fully understand at a glance. Lin, the director, and the crew worked hard to reach the goal. “In this play, we need a scene with seven doors and double floors, which is truly a difficult and challenging task,” she shared. “This setting needs to be turned around for use in the second act, which shows the off-stage’s ongoingness.”

For a comedy to work, comic timing is key. “It is not easy to put a farce on stage,” said Cecilia Liu. In Noises Off, actors must perform exhausting physical actions, but even subtle movements and expressions are crucial. “We work hard in noticing even trivial acts that help form a hilarious atmosphere and produce funny physical humor. If the goal is to make the audience laugh out loud, we have to know how to create the right moment for them to laugh,” Lin said before the opening performance.

Director of the 2022 Senior Play, Annalise Lin.

Photo by Ivy Liao

Q: What is the motivation behind choosing Noises Off as the 2022 senior play?

Lin: In the past few years, the chosen scripts for the senior play were much more disheartening and serious with either a physically or psychologically heavy atmosphere. This motivates me to bring a totally different theme on stage. I want to bring happiness and joy to the English department and the audiences; therefore, Noises Off becomes one of the best choices.

Q: What are the challenges in the production?

Lin: Set construction is really a great challenge. The play contains lots of huge props such as doors and floors, and it takes time and money to create them. We also have to make sure the transitions from act to act are very fluent, and no mistakes are allowed. Even a slight misplacement of props and wrong timing of sound effects or stage lighting will possibly ruin the atmosphere created from the beginning of the show.

Q: Noises Off is a play within a play. How did you connect when directing this play?

Lin: I resonate with the play a lot. Problems that actors have during the rehearsal in Noise Off are indeed what we have encountered in our rehearsal. For example, actors sometimes forget the lines, and wrong stage movements or blocking happens, too.

Q: What do you consider special about the 2022 senior play?

Lin: Noises Off is definitely a play in which each audience can feel the energy and happiness. The past few years have been difficult and tough because of the pandemic, but luckily, life is getting back to normal. The alumni are able to come back to the campus, and performance in front of a crowd is allowed. I hope students and faculty in the English department can relax by watching this comedic play. It will be great for them to forget their frustrations and to recall their feelings of joy in the year.

Curtain Call. Photo by Ivy Liao

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