Word: gunn
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Frayn begins Noise Off brilliantly--for several minutes Heather Gunn, who plays the actress Dotty Otley, who plays housekeeper Mrs. Clackett in Nothing On, occupies the stage, nonsensically mumbling about sardines and trying to answer a telephone at the same time. It is only minutes later, with the entrance of the director of Nothing On, that the audience understands that Noise Off is about the rehearsal of another play...
Lovers' quarrels provide the root of the bedlam backstage in Act II. Lejune is madly in love with Otley and is angry, suspecting that she and the bumbling Frederick Fellowes (Steve Petersen) are having an affair. Barton's Lejune storms around backstage begging Gunn's Otley to take him back, yelling at her for having an affair and plotting to kill Steve Petersen, who wonderfully portrays the innocent Fellowes...
Directed by Heather Gunn...
Martha is a loud-mouthed, overbearing alcoholic, and Gunn plays her well. Martha loves George, but she is disappointed with his lack of ambition, and as result she relentlessly degrades him publicly and privately. Gunn plays her nag role to the hilt. Her screams of "George" are perfectly annoying, her menacing looks towards him pack a lethal force, and when she criticizes George, her tone leaves a fire in its wake...
...moments where Martha shows her more sensitive, feminine side, Gunn performs with finese. Her seduction sequences with Nick are provocative. Her voice almost purrs and she does not merely walk, she saunters. At the end of the play, when she is left all alone, Martha reveals the tenderness that has remained hidden behind her tough exterior for most of the rest of the play. Gunn capably exposes Martha's major weakness, her deep love for George...