Noises Off

Michael Frayn is brilliant. With that being said, a central motif is interruptions. Each time Lloyd tries to continue on with the production of Nothing On, the doors won't open or close, Selsdon is no where to be found, Brooke loses her contact lens, Garry is struggling to get his point across, or Dotty cannot remember her what props to take off and what to leave on. The motif of interruptions actually ties in with what receives the most stage time which is the personal relationships between the characters themselves. This is interesting to note because it is not the actual script of the play within a play that is focused on, but characters. A tag line that compliments the motif would be "sardines" because every time the word sardines is mentioned, the word signals an interruption. For example, Selsdon's last line in Nothing On is, "a nice plate of sardines" but every time he tries to say it, he forgets which causes an interruption. Other points in the play is in Act One when Dotty cannot remember to take off the sardines or not. Then Garry interrupts the dress rehearsal to point out how the sardines are a pain in the ass. Or in Act Three when the sardines are everywhere and out of place, they mess up the flow of the show and help cause the train wreck at the end.