The Cast Photo by Michael Brosilow

Todd Rosenthal's scenic design is skillful on both sides of fourth wall; as the action opens on the woefully under-rehearsed, dangerously distraction-prone cast less than twenty-four hours from opening, one can practically hear the director and crew thinking desperately to themselves that at least the set looks fantastic.

In Act II, Rosenthal has managed to expertly sow the subtle seeds of chaos, despite the fact that the entire set is on a revolve, with the behind the scenes set literally the reverse of the genteel country home set for Act I. Touches like a single sad and obviously inadequate fire pail, foam padding that has seen better days duct taped to low ceilings, and a generally cramped, last-legs sort of feeling mirror the deterioration of the cast members as individuals and any esprit de corps that might have existed before the matinee onslaught began.

The sound design by Cricket Myers is also crucial throughout, but especially in Acts II and III as the audience experiences the dueling chaos on the stage and behind the scenes simultaneously. Similarly, Josh Epstein's lighting design is consistently excellent, reaching its hilarious apotheosis as it lurches the audience into Act III and the show into its disastrous closing performance.

Izumi Inaba's costumes are out of this world, and it's tempting to go on and on about the perfection of the shoes alone. But from Poppy's dowdy eighties-wear to the wonder of Brooke/Vicki's mod get up to Belinda/Flavia's Jackie O–adjacent ensemble, color, cut, and fit are stunning in the best sense, or the most terrible sense, as appropriate to the comedy of the moment.

And in a play that places such demands on an ensemble, and a production that not only meets but exceeds those demands, it would be unthinkable not to acknowledge the violence design by R&D Choreography and the voice and dialect coaching by Kate DeVore. Slapstick can so easily miss it mark, and it never does here as the absurdity ratchets up. Similarly, the show calls on the actors to navigate not just accents within accents, but accents within accents when one bleeds into the other, thanks to the rapidly devolving conditions, on stage and off. I can't think of a single moment when anyone stumbled.

Shapiro, of course, deserves much credit for cultivating the conditions for success. However much the fictional cast grows to loathe one another, their ultimate heroic efforts to finish the last damned show on the tour radiates with the camaraderie of the real-life cast.

Audrey Francis as Belinda/Flavia is a wonder of mannered movement. She retreats to static, upper-crust poses worthy of the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady, not only as Belinda's sole acting choice, but as the character's default in moments of stress. It truly is funny every single time, and Francis pairs this with genuine warmth and competence as Belinda rolls up her metaphorical sleeves and wills the final performance to some kind of closure.

As Dotty/Mrs. Clackett, Ora Jones overdoes the housekeeper's "downstairs" accent to a perfect degree, and it's a pleasure to revel in the skill with which she moves back and forth between the two registers, even from the beginning as Dotty struggles with Mrs. Clackett's stage business. As with Francis, it would surely be enough if Jones settled for playing comedy to the hilt, but her investment in Dotty's sweetness early on pays huge character dividends as she limps furiously through Act III.

A notable strength of the production is its fearlessness in letting the characters be deeply stupid without ever playing them as stupid. This comes through particularly in the performances of Amanda Fink as Brooke/Vicki and James Vincent Meredith as Frederick/Philip/Sheikh. Brooke and Frederick are unquestionably written as dim and, worse, dim at the critical moments from the point of view of trying to get the play and its tour launched. Yet Fink deftly plays Brooke as tuning out, rather than intellectually unable to tune in, and moreover conveys the character's brand of legitimate professionalism with conviction. Meredith uses his own charisma to portray Frederick as handsome and just talented enough that he's gotten quite far on minimum effort.

Andrew Leeds' (Garry/Roger) physical clowning is good enough to look effortless while still striking fear into the heart of anyone who has ever stage managed and definitely knows the company doesn't have that kind of insurance. As the drunken Selsdon/Burglar, Francis Guinan is also not at all afraid to go all out for the big laugh, but as with the rest of the cast, the touching and real moments he creates make the comedy all the sharper and more effective. At the other end of the spectrum, Vaneh Assadourian (Poppy) and Max Stewart (Tim) dwell so much in the real that their absurd moments draw genuine, unexpected belly laughs.

Perhaps the greatest testament to the strength of the direction and the ensemble, though, is how seamlessly Joe Dempsey is integrated, as he subs in at this performance for Rick Holmes, playing the doomed production's director Lloyd Dallas, and fits in. Dempsey's ability to flick the switch from brittle and on the brink of violence to the seasoned "actor whisperer" is top notch, and his stage fright–induced near catatonia in Act III sits perfectly within the vibe the rest of the cast has created.

Noises Off runs through November 3, 2024, at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Downstairs Theater, 1650 N. Halsted, Chicago IL. For tickets, please visit steppenwolf.org or call 312-335-1650.