Noises Off” actors Nick Steen (Frederick Fellows) and Laura Welsh (Belinda Blair) have an impressive list of credits with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (ISF). Steen has spent twelve seasons with the company, acting in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Macbeth” and countless other productions. Welsh has spent several seasons with ISF as well, her credits ranging from “Mamma Mia” to “Murder On The Orient Express” last season.
“Noises Off”, written by Michael Frayn, is a play within a play. The production follows an acting troupe as they attempt to rehearse and perform the fictitious play “Noises On”, and of course, things go comedically wrong.
“[Acting in ‘Noises Off’ is] very easy because [the play] deals with what we do for a living and the ways in which we sometimes make mistakes, and also, the ways that we help each other through those mistakes,” Welsh said. “In an attempt to spin gold out of straw and with varying levels of success.”
Steen cited the show as the best-crafted comedy he’s ever experienced.
“We’re all pulling from not only our own eccentricities, but folks that we’ve known throughout our careers,” Steen said. “It’s been a lot of fun to take that [and] put it on stage, and in such a well crafted comedy that ‘Noises Off’ is … it’s the best crafted comedy I think I’ve ever experienced in my life — it is secretly clinical in how well Michael Frayn maps out what the audience needs to be paying attention to.”
Welsh described one of the most challenging scenes to perform, which features a wall separating what is occurring onstage and offstage, where the actors’ entrances and exits are perfectly timed.
In addition to acting, Welsh has experience working as an intimacy coordinator, which she is able to draw from in rehearsals due to the amount of physical comedy within “Noises Off”.
“The fun thing for me in this show was talking to Chris, our director, and really collaborating on attempting to create slight variations in terms of the intimacy we see in the play within the play —which ideally any of our movement feel a little bit stylized, feel certainly not real in any way, it’s performative. And then the intimacy that happens off stage, which ideally feels a little bit more realistic,” Welsh said. “Just setting up structures. For me, one of the biggest takeaways as an intimacy director is mindfulness.”
Welsh explained that in day to day life, boundaries are crossed constantly. Bumping into someone at the grocery store, accidentally invading personal space during conversation.
“So much of the rhetoric has been about intimacy directors [as] the ‘fun police’, my experience is that it fosters collaboration and creativity if we all start [with] understanding the rules,” Welsh said, drawing from an anecdote of her and Steen in rehearsal.
“We took a very ridiculous take on our scene the other day,” Welsh continued. “It’s helpful that Nick and I have worked together for over a decade, but also it’s fun to play. I know exactly where Nick’s zones are. I know where he’s okay being touched, which means that I can play in a different way.”
For Steen, this is an exciting opportunity to explore all that physical comedy has to offer an actor.
“I can say that I’m sure I’ve done a lot of shows that have invited physical comedy, whether or not I was up to the task is a very different question,” Steen said. “I’ve been very grateful to have been around this company and seen some of the clearest physical comedy that I’ve ever seen in my career.”
Steen expressed his gratitude for having an intimacy coordinator present, as it allows more freedom as an actor.
“I love having an intimacy director in the room … it allows a sense of structure that provides comfort and barriers for people who may unintentionally or intentionally cross those lines. It’s necessary to have somebody in the room who can say, actually, no, let’s block this out,” Steen said.
As far as moments to look out for, both Steen and Welsh highlighted the genius of fellow actor David Anthony Smith (Selsdon Mowbray).
“My [favorite] moments are also Selsdon moments,” Welsh said. “I would encourage people to really listen to Selsdon because … Selsdon is actually partially deaf, and so there’s a lot of fun in Selsdon mishearing people,” Welsh said. “Sometimes, because [David Anthony] is so funny, people are laughing and they miss the fact that he misheard something. It’s funny because it’s not physical comedy, but it is amazing to have him just repeat something that is not at all what anyone has said on stage.”
In terms of physical comedy, Welsh said to keep an eye on Jeffery C. Hawkins (Lesgate) who “takes the award” for physicality in the show.
After covering everything from navigating the physical comedy presented in the show to standout moments, the actors answered the hardest-hitting question of all:
What flavor of ice cream would your characters be?
“Freddie would be an ice cream experience. Freddie would be a little bit of every possible known flavor with every possible topping you could think of that’s overflowing and making an absolute mess,” Steen said.
Welsh’s answer provided a surprising amount of depth into the character of Belinda.
“Belinda is Neapolitan because she’s very pink … as a character, she just kind of grounds the other actors around her in a way that is a really solid vanilla, and then she’s got some fun sass, which is the chocolate,” Welsh said.
This wild comedy will be performed June 13 through July 5 at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, located at 5657 E Warm Springs Ave. Tickets can be purchased on the Idaho Shakespeare Festival’s website. Tickets are discounted for students with valid ID.
