Act One is a touring theater company of bad actors with an out-of-control director desperately attempting to get through a final rehearsal the night before the premiere.

Act Two is back stage of a performance of the same play a month later, where the trysts and turns of humanity boil over and make an absolute mess of everything.

Act Three is back onstage after four months on tour, when the absolute mess has gone well beyond sanity and the play is a complete and total wreck.

The cast of this production, under the direction of Interim NAT Artistic Director Steven Young, does an excellent job of creating chaos Ñ which looks a great deal like a badly organized high school play gone wrong.
(Reviewer's aside: I generally dislike farce. Most directors tend to beat the daylights out of the "funny bits" slapstick crazy that makes the Three Stooges look like conservative academics, which tends to destroy any subtle humor that can develop from a more subdued presentation of the script and interactions of the characters.)

That's not to say there aren't laughs galore in "Noises Off." Even through the deadly dullness and "in" theater jokes of Act One, there are numerous instances of physical comedy and impossible situations.

Act Two actually gives the actors a much better opportunity to show their talents, because there is a bit less of the totally inane physical humor compared to other, more realistic interactions.

Act Three is so nuts that the actors and the director could depart completely from the script and no one would ever know.

The set is perfect for the show: lots of doors for people to go in and out and let the audience wonder who will get caught where, so kudos to Janine Vreatt.

The costumes work very well: pants that drop to the ankles easily, a tarty dress and sexy underthings for the "hottie," and caricaturistic burglar duds for the burglar, so kudos to W. Alan Williams.

The crazy physical humor is marvelously timed: everyone who is supposed to get "hurt" makes it look real, and the unlikely connections of people and objects actually come off rather cleanly, so kudos to Drew Vidal.

Special mention for David Gingerich as the inarticulate actor who goes through the most amazing onstage physical abuse; for Christine Swan as the bimbo actress who runs around in her "smalls" and insists on saying every line exactly as written; and for Kathy Stevens as the more mature actress who desperately tries to make sense of the chaos as the show collapses around her.

Makeesha Sharp is also effective as the almost realistic stage manager, and Erik Uppling makes the crazed director laughable if not entirely believable.

The rest is just nuts. (Remember, I don't like farce.)

"Noises Off" runs through Oct. 5; call 815-964-6282 for ticket information.