News

‘Noises Off’ features Playhouse veterans

Scott Treadway, Ralph Redpath and Barbara Bradshaw star in 'Noises Off.'

By Bill Moss, Published: August 23, 2012

FLAT ROCK — In "Noises Off," Flat Rock Playhouse audiences will see a play that veteran actors call challenging and fun.

"It's the motherlode of farces. It's the most complicated farce ever written," says Scott Treadyway. "Would you back me up on that?"

"Yes," says Barbara Bradshaw.

Treadway, Bradshaw and Ralph Redpath, who between them have more than 100 years of experience acting at the Playhouse, talked about the play last week during a rehearsal break. The comedy, which opens Thursday, stars the three veterans plus six more actors, including Preston Dyar, Garret Long, Michael MacCauley and Brenna Yeary, from the just closed "Guys and Dolls" show. It also stars Willie Repoley of Asheville, who performed last season in "Witness for the Prosecution," Laura Woyasz new to the Playhouse stage and most recently seen on Broadway as Glinda in "Wicked."

Redpath, who first performed in Flat Rock in 1971, in the show-a-week pace of Playhouse founder Robroy Farquhar, has directed the play twice, including in 1989 here. He plays a recovering alcoholic prone to forget lines, miss entrances and disappear entirely.

"It's a troupe of actors in dress rehearsal putting on a show called 'Nothing On'," Bradshaw says.
Treadway elaborates.

"It's a play inside a play and the results of certain mishaps among the company members and how they affect the actual play, so the audience is given the privilege of actually seeing on and off-stage what's going during performances of 'Nothing On.' So you're literally in one act watching what's on stage, in the second act you're watching from backstage and in the third act, you're back on stage, later in the run of the show...."

"After they've been touring for 12 weeks," says Bradshaw.

"And starting to really dislike each other," Treadway says.

The play is beloved among avid theater fans for the way it spoofs a well-known form of theater.

"Farces are already very complicated in their own," Treadway says.

"A lot of business," Redpath adds.

"A lot of business and a lot of repetition," Treadway says. "In the case of this play you basically are playing the same act three times in a row with slight variations so you have to learn the differences from one act to the next, and still tell the same story. Your lines change and circumstances change but you still tell the same story. It's difficult to memorize but it's worth it because what the audience is going to get is the dismantling of this show and it's really funny. ...

"I think Michael Frayn wanted the audiences to see how hard farces are to begin with anyway," he says.

As actors playing actors, the actors have fun.

"There's actors that we've worked with that we kind roll our eyes at," Treadway says, "because in some ways many of those characters are people we've worked with, and thought were, you know, obnoxious."

Politics free zone
Given their experience at the Playhouse and knowledge of regional theater across the country, it seemed that Redpath, Bradshaw and Treadway might have an important take on the politics that has swirled around the Playhouse this summer. The company has sought help from the county to recover from financial setbacks in 2010 and 2011.

"I'm 800 miles away. I'm not involved in the politics at all," says Bradshaw, who lives in Delray Beach, Fla. "I'm happy to be home. Robin hired me in 1976. One of the great blessings of my life for 36 years has been coming to this Playhouse. I'm grateful that Vince has brought me back, and I want to give 110 percent now like I did when Robin was here. As far as the politics go, I frankly don't know anything about it."

Redpath says the expansion that has drawn some criticism locally is inevitable.

"Barbara and I in go back to our heyday with a show every week, and there weren't musicals," he says. "Now there are lots of musicals, big ones. There was no way to do the musicals back then. The Music on the Rock series and the downtown space — it's just part of the evolution. It's not the same theater Robroy had. That theater wouldn't be here. You couldn't do that anymore."

"You cannot change whatever the management is," he adds. "Money to put on the plays has to be raised from some source. There are theaters all over the country that for one factor or another have closed down, and if Flat Rock Playhouse ever closes it'll never open again."

Adds Treadway, "It would be an incredible, incredible tragedy, and completely unnecessary."

Launching careers
The talk turns to the Flat Rock organization's value to young performers. It has launched many careers.
Nick Kepley, a West Henderson High School graduate who grew up in YouTheater, became a touring ballet dancer. He choreographed "Guys and Dolls." Ben Hope, a Flat Rock Playhouse apprentice, has become a Broadway actor. Working the stage here helped those young people.

"The nurturing that has taken place, and the atmosphere of working to whatever hour to get it done is pretty unique here," Treadway says. "What I learned that's the best in the theater I learned here. It's not just the quality of the work on the stage. It's the quality of the people backstage and the quality of the people in the office and the quality of the people dealing with the public. So this place taught me a whole different approach to doing this business. It's very much about the people in the seats. They're the priority."

"Noises Off" will give those people one more opportunity to see a showcase of Playhouse talent — actors playing actors who are playing zany, bumbling or pompous characters — all in the service of a show about show. For it's the show that must go on.

"I always look at the show as sort of a valentine to the theater," Redpath says of "Noises Off." Regular theater goers "will appreciate all that backstage stuff that goes on, because you always wonder, what's going on back there?"

"Noises Off" opens today and plays through Sept. 9. Flat Rock Playhouse, 2661 Greenville Hwy, Flat Rock Curtain: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $35; Senior/AAA, $33; Student, $22. Info: 828-693-0731, 866-732-8008 or www.flatrockplayhouse.org.