Show Business: Viewing a Farce from Behind

The comedy hit Noises Off is a triumph of slapstick choreography

Each night at 10:45, crowds stream out of Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theater limp and disheveled, gasping for breath and wiping their eyes. Much as they may appear to be fleeing tear gas or a smoke bomb, these people are in fact the happy victims of a very different kind of explosion. They have just spent more than two hours howling and guffawing at Noises Off, the farce by Britain's Michael Frayn that is the comedy hit of the season. The show recounts the misadventures...

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