[noises off - 2004]
 

First I ever heard of this one was when my friend Jack Wilson (who directed me in about half of the things I've done) says, "hey, I'm directing this British farce for Baton Rouge Little Theater next year. Stay in town... I'm gonna need you to play the part I played when BRLT did it the last time."

"You think I'd be good in it?" I asked.

"No," he says. "But I think you're the only son of a bitch in Baton Rouge crazy enough to do it."

Garry Lejeune was the particular part he was talking about, and here's a fellow who just can't talk. Oh, it doesn't stop him from making the script twice as thick as any other one, but he says things like, "I mean, OK, so he's the, you know, fine. But Dotty, love, you've been playing this kind of part for, well, I mean, Jesus, Dotty, you know what I mean." And when he's actually moving... in this one show, he gets slammed into a door, goosed by an aging alcoholic, smashed with flowers, threatened with an axe, kicked in the shin, telephoned in the crotch, and verbally abused. He completes most of Act II with his shoeslaces tied together. And the coupe de grace is a trip over a box of groceries down an entire flight of stairs.

So naturally I was on board.

The cast and crew were as professional, talented, and athletic as one ever was. They had to have been... otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do it. They joked with me that I got twice as much direction as they did, but what I remember Jack saying most is, "you can do it any way you want to, Phil, but if you do it like I tell you, you'll get a laugh." And he was right every damn time.

The film version of Noises Off stars John Ritter as Garry Lejeune, and Christopher Reeve as Frederick Fellowes, a gentleman who gets glued to several things in the play. Tragically, John died shortly before our production opened, and so my friend Kevin (who played Frederick) suggested we dedicate our performances to good old Jack Tripper and Superman, which we did.

Now watch Phil kill himself with some stairs. That oughtta cheer you up again.