Interview with Kurt Full for Noises Off, “The Best Farce Ever Written”

The winner, including revivals, of 3 Tony nominations, Noises Off has been called the funniest farce ever written, a farce being a play where antics take center stage. It’s all antics, all the time. So Noises Off is just loaded with synchronized, double, triple, and quadruple stacked physical comedy bits. You’ll never see such a test of physical comedy in your life.

And you can see it now in Eastern Connecticut with true comedy experts James Roday Rodriguez (Psych, A Million Little Things), Kurt Fuller (Psych, Supernatural, Evil, Night Court), Allison Miller (A Million Little Things), Michael Trotter, and Jamie Hyder.

Trust me. Having run Events INSIDER for nearly 20 years, and written with my team 1,700 articles, including hundreds of play reviews, you will want to miss this. Fortunately the run has been extended twice due to popular demand. Get your tickets now at legacytheatrect.org.

Cast member Kurt Fuller kindly agreed to an interview. Here’s the video, or see the transcript below.

 

 

Events INSIDER: Noises Off is called the funniest farce ever written. For people who haven’t heard of this, a farce is where antics take center stage. It’s like a circus act. It’s that Scooby-Doo thing where there’s a corridor with doors and people are coming in and out of the doors comedically.

Events INSIDER: With you and with James Rodriguez and the other cast, I assume it’s going to be great. So my question is this: Physical comedy, comedic timing, can you learn that? How do you rehearse that?

Kurt Fuller: I don’t call myself great. I call myself accomplished, but I was born with timing. That was nothing I learned. I’ve always had timing. I mean, with my family, I always had timing. I always understood when to come in and when to stop. There are things you can learn, but it’s like a great athlete. Great athletes don’t learn anything. They just get better at what they’re already great at.

Events INSIDER: Isn’t it inter-relational? But you have to have comedic timing with someone else, I assume?

Kurt Fuller: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, unless both people have comedic timing, if you’re in a scene with two people, it ain’t going to work because your timing’s not going to be any good because their timing’s off or vice versa. I will say this is a very, very, very accomplished cast and the play, Noises Off, it’s funny when it’s good. When it’s not good, we all feel under pressure to get it right and it’s mostly about entrances and exits. It’s not about the lines, it’s about the entrances and exits.

Events INSIDER: I’m sure that you know that the original Broadway production in 1982 was Tony nominated, the 2001 Broadway revival was Tony nominated, and the 2016 Broadway revival was Tony nominated.

Kurt Fuller: Yes.

Events INSIDER: If someone wants to take this to Broadway, are you in, or is this just a fun vacation for you?

Kurt Fuller: Well, I’m going to say it’s a fun vacation. I don’t know whether a play like this would do well on Broadway. I don’t know. I don’t know what they like on Broadway now. It changes all the time. All the time.

Events INSIDER: But a silly comedy I think is sort of timeless. Thank God it’s not a dark comedy. A comedy that makes you depressed.

Kurt Fuller: Yeah. If you like to laugh, you’re going to like this play. That’s just it. So it probably would work anywhere, anytime, because there’s never a time when people don’t want to laugh. Let’s face it.

Events INSIDER: Right. Let’s switch gears. In Psych, you play the coroner, Woody, who should probably be in prison, but somehow he is endearing. How do you take a crazy character and make it endearing and grounded, like writing the lunch order on the corpse’s chest?

Kurt Fuller: Right. It’s so wrong. Well, Woody means no harm. Everything he does is for the best of intentions. And really you root for somebody who just wants to be loved and just wants to be part of a team. And that’s all Woody wants. And he’s not very good at it…

Kurt Fuller: But he tries so hard. I mean, he has so many great qualities, but he does not understand limits or there’s nowhere he won’t go and nothing he won’t do.

Events INSIDER: I guess the viewer feels safe with Woody. He is written in such a way that there will never be real pain.

Kurt Fuller: Correct. Correct. Well, that’s the nature of comedy really is almost, it takes the edge, but you know it’s not going to go all the way. No one will die. Dead people show up, but I didn’t kill any of them.

Events INSIDER: You’re modest in your interviews, saying for example you’re not curing cancer and don’t think of your work as important, but I hope that you acknowledge that in your work with Psych, Supernatural, Evil, Night Court and more, you’re helping millions of people who could be depressed or having a dark moment.

Kurt Fuller: I’ve started going to a few conventions… and the things that people tell me that come up to me about … I mean, people who were in the Middle East when Psych was on, people who were in the hospital, people who were stuck at home during COVID. It is actually quite gratifying to hear that it actually does make a difference to improve someone’s day or give them something to look forward to. And I’m all for it.

Events INSIDER: That’s great.

Kurt Fuller: That satisfies me completely.

Events INSIDER: Well, hopefully if you’re having a tough day, just your history of doing that for people might be of some benefit.

Kurt Fuller: It does. Yeah. Oh yeah. I used to go, “Geez, what am I doing? I’m doing this movie, that movie, television. What is it really?” But you know what? These are the little things that matter actually, the day-to-day things.

Events INSIDER: It’s even more than just comedy to some people. With a TV show like Psych or also Night Court (though not your character!) it’s a TV family.

Kurt Fuller: Yes.

Events INSIDER: Having a surrogate loving family, even though it’s just a TV show, can be weirdly important to people, for real reasons, not just delusional fandom.

Kurt Fuller: I get it. I see it with Supernatural, not for me, but for Jensen and Jason. And with Psych, the fans are really part of the Psych family and they feel like it, and we embrace that actually.

Events INSIDER: I’ve seen in your interviews that you talk about how you began by overacting. Of course in the theater you have to project, but does anyone really believe that “less is more”? That doesn’t seem intuitive.

Kurt Fuller: There are some people who I really envy who “get” that film acting, that “less”, that just the right amount… If you overdo it, if you do all the work for the audience, that’s overacting. When you feel for them, when you react for them, you don’t give them an opportunity to participate in the dialogue and it really is a dialogue. Well then you’ve done too much because then they’re bored because they don’t even have to think. They don’t even have to pay attention. So it’s that fine line between reaching out but not reaching out all way. Only reaching out halfway.

Events INSIDER: Right, so in one of your shows, being evil in Supernatural, but being so casual about it, that you don’t telegraph when the evil is coming.

Kurt Fuller: Correct. Correct.

Events INSIDER: Interesting, interesting. Speaking of boring the audience, how do you know when repetition, which there’s a lot of in Noises Off, is repetition either boring or is it like a running gag, like in the TV show Psych, which people love? How do you know?

Kurt Fuller: Well, that’s your best question so far.

Kurt Fuller: I will say that there is so much repetition in Noises Off, and if we do it right, it’s going to be hilarious. If we do it wrong, it’s going to be boring.

Kurt Fuller: And that’s in the timing and that’s in keeping it fresh and that’s in the audience expects it to happen. They don’t know, then it happens again, and if you do it correctly and you build it every time, it will be very, very funny.

Events INSIDER: Well, you said in one of your interviews that you have to listen like your life depends on it, which I assume you mean your partners in acting, but does that also include the audience in theater?

Kurt Fuller: Oh yes. Oh yes. Although in theater you can drop out of it. If I’m on camera and I forget my line and I’m thinking, what’s my next line? Everybody’s looking at me and they know I’m not there, I’m thinking of something. The camera never misses anything.

Kurt Fuller: On stage, you can go back a little bit and think, what the hell is my next line? I’m 72 years old, I got to figure out what my next line is.

Events INSIDER: And then you call it improv if they catch you.

Kurt Fuller: Exactly. Exactly.

Events INSIDER: Thank you so much for your time.

Kurt Fuller: Oh, my pleasure.

Noises Off runs September 18 through October 12. See legacytheatrect.org.