WHAT's 'Noises Off' whips right along

WELLFLEET — Here's a dare: Try — just try — to keep your eye on the plate of sardines, plus the axe, plus the bottle of whiskey, and the cactus, too, in the lightning-paced, largely mimed second act of Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater's "Noises Off."

Good luck: The farce whips along so quickly and so adeptly that these and many other objects ricochet from person to person, with doors flying open and closed and utter chaos staying just barely under control. Director John Hancock is working here almost more as traffic cop or circus ringmaster or knife juggler as he skillfully keeps his nine actors racing through meticulous comedic choreography.

The clever construction of Michael Frayn's intricately plotted crowd-pleaser is this: A barely competent English acting troupe is working with director Lloyd Dallas (Robert Kropf) to stage the farce "Nothing On." The first act is the final dress rehearsal, when very little goes right and Dallas — at first a Godlike voice from the audience — does a slow burn to utter frustration. While filled with funny situations itself, Act 1 also nicely establishes the lines and plots of "Nothing On" and the personality quirks of each member of the acting troupe.

Those are key to making the climactic Act 2 work. After Ted Vitale and Victor Johnson's immense, two-story, eight-doored set is turned 180 degrees from its English country house side, we find the actors backstage. They're a month into the show's tour, romantic affairs have unraveled, resentments and panic are high. They perform those same scenes from "Nothing On" on the rear part of the set — while we watch from the viewpoint of backstage.

Once the "Nothing On" curtain goes up — and it takes this bungling lot some doing to get there — the actors can't talk out loud. So all the arguments, mistakes, revenge moves, barely made entrances and exits, and frenzy happen silently. It's hilariously exhausting to watch, so one can only imagine the WHAT actors collapsing when it's over.

Those scenes create such a satisfying climax that Act 3 — with us watching, from the front country home set again, as one of the tour's final performances completely collapses — is almost a let-down. That's especially true if the second intermission is too long, so that the high pitch of the comedy starts to fade. If that long wait Wednesday night was intentional, because the ill-fated "Nothing On" performance is supposed to be delayed, then the gag didn't quite work.

The romantic chemistry also needs improvement, but pretty much everything else here works very well. It's a pleasure to watch these actors — almost all familiar to WHAT audiences — practically give a master class in ensemble acting. Each artfully creates a distinctive oddball, then makes that portrayal fit seamlessly into the tangle of relationships and situations both on and off the "Nothing On" stage.

Some characterization highlights are dimwitted Frederick's (Tom Patrick Stephens) inability to understand the nuances of the "Nothing On" script or the romantic intrigue around him; tightly wound Gary's (Adam Harrington) horrified and angry expressions in Act 2 when he pops backstage thinking every man is after lost love Dotty (Elizabeth Atkeson); and scantily clad blonde airhead Brooke's (Winslow Corbett) complete inability to improvise as she brightly plows on with rehearsed lines even as the rest of the "Nothing On" play falls apart around her.

If you need a laugh, you're guaranteed to get many of them at this "Noises Off." Frayn's comedy may be less edgy than typical WHAT fare, but there's good reason that this early '80s farce has become a theatrical staple. It has to be done fast and right, though — and WHAT has the talent pool to pull it off.