The real Kurt Wohlers, who is precise and confident enough to get himself elected senior class president at La Center High School this year, found himself hemming and hawing and dithering and “well-um”ing a lot this spring.
That’s because he’s spent so much time playing the comedically vague and befuddled Garry Lejeune in La Center’s upcoming production of “Noises Off,” by Michael Frayn.
But wait — Garry Lejeune is an actor who plays Roger in a fictitious play-within-a-play called “Nothing On.” So Wohlers plays Lejeune, who plays Roger. “It is very funny and very challenging,” said Wohlers.
“Noises Off” is like that: multilayered, confusing and totally hilarious. All the actors are playing actors who are trying to perfect “Nothing On” before the curtain while pursuing their own conflicting agendas behind it.
In Act One, you see them suffer through a laughably disastrous dress rehearsal. In Act Two — after the entire two-story stage set has rotated halfway around — you watch what’s going on behind the scenes, hearing the onstage dialogue repeated while the actors silently sabotage one another via bits of really immature backstage mischief. Like skipped cues, tied-together shoelaces and plates of sardines dumped on heads.
“You get to see all the mayhem, but we don’t have lines — it’s all in how we act,” said Wohlers.
And in Act Three — but no, we’ll let you find out for yourself how the chaos increases to a climax.
“It’s a farce. Everything goes wrong,” said La Center drama and art teacher Sara Storer. It’s also the most difficult and ambitious script she’s ever attempted, she said, because the action is so complex and frenetic and because of that rotating monster of a set.
“The set was the major thing I was worried about,” she said. La Center doesn’t have a big stage to begin with; how could the school build and accommodate a double-decker set that spins? With lots of skilled parental support as well as donations from Home Depot, she said.
“I had amazing parent volunteers who spent hours and hours building this thing,” Storer said. With the help from Home Depot, “We were able to build the whole thing pretty much for free.”
While La Center does offer a couple of plays per year, Storer said, those are usually worked up during regular drama classes. “Noises Off” is the first time a production has demanded more commitment than that — lots of extracurricular labor and rehearsal, that is.
“The seniors have really stepped up, they really want to pull this off,” Storer said. “They are working amazingly hard on this.”
Performances of “Noises Off” are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 7, 8 and 9 at La Center High School, 725 Highland Road. Tickets are $5.
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