{"id":17787,"date":"2019-06-12T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=17787"},"modified":"2019-06-11T10:55:15","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T17:55:15","slug":"langham-court-to-close-out-season-with-a-heap-of-british-humour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/06\/12\/langham-court-to-close-out-season-with-a-heap-of-british-humour\/","title":{"rendered":"Langham Court to close out season with a heap of British humour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Local community theatre company Langham Court Theatre is preparing the final show of their 90th season, Noises Off<\/em>. For director Don Keith, the shenanigans of the 1982 British comedy about a theatre troupe on the final night of rehearsals before the big opening of their show hit close to home.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNoises Off<\/em>, I laugh at it, because it\u2019s what goes on backstage in any production, magnified a hundred times,\u201d Keith says. \u201cBut it is appropriate because it\u2019s about actors. It\u2019s about putting on a play, it\u2019s about the things that happen, and experienced theatre-goers, experienced actors will understand everything. One of the interesting things we discovered about this play is that the things that happen in the play are happening to us in real life right now. It seems to be an ironic parallel that we\u2019re working under a very strange world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Noises Off explores the mishaps of a theatre troupe on the final night of rehearsals before their big opening night (photo by David Lowes).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Keith adds that while he doesn\u2019t \u201cworry about it,\u201d per se<\/em>, he hopes the audience is aware that these things don\u2019t go on to the extreme presented in the show. According to Keith, the show is a British farce to the n<\/em>th degree, something the team discussed at length from early on because of the nature of the genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different kind of comedy, a different kind of farce,\u201d says Keith, \u201cthe language, the actions, the staging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the movie adaptation of the play was set in the United States, Langham has decided to keep it set as originally intended in England. And while the farce-within-a-farce is chock-a-block full of British humour, Keith insists there is substance to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take itself very seriously, but on the other hand, it does take itself very seriously,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s probably one of the hardest plays you could ever imagine to put on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Keith, the show was written in a very specific way that makes it very challenging to put on without following original playwright Michael Frayn\u2019s stage directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very specific with timing, with characters\u2026 there\u2019s two plays going on at the same time. It\u2019s a bit of a puzzle to put together,\u201d Keith says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, Keith is confident the puzzle is complete, although he admits to one other unique challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe set for this production is one of the most complicated and enormous\u2014it\u2019s a big set,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s two levels with eight doors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keith also has the challenge of the set needing to be able to revolve to reveal the backstage area. This challenging set means the cast of this show, which is a combination of newcomers to Langham and seasoned performers with the company, has to maintain high energy throughout the performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up and down the stairs, back and forth\u2014this is a good play to get in real good shape,\u201d he jokes. \u201cI said at the very beginning the requirement is they have to be able to hop up two flights of stairs backwards. That\u2019s literally\u2014it doesn\u2019t happen, but it almost does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stamina and set challenges aside, Keith says the show makes him laugh every time he sees it, and he hopes it puts everybody in a great mood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody wants to go to the theatre to have a bad time. Whether you\u2019re audience or an actor, you want to have fun and celebrate the craft,\u201d says Keith. \u201cSo, I guess that\u2019s the appeal of [the show], is that it really is a very appropriate, very funny, a summer-like silliness, but it\u2019s a real celebration of our history, our 90 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noises Off<\/em>
Various times, until Saturday, June 22
Various prices (student discount available), Langham Court Theatre
langhamtheatre.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local community theatre company Langham Court Theatre is preparing the final show of their 90th season, Noises Off. For director Don Keith, the shenanigans of the 1982 British comedy about a theatre troupe on the final night of rehearsals before the big opening of their show hit close to home.   \u201cNoises Off, I laugh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-june-12-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17789,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17787\/revisions\/17789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}