THEATER REVIEW:

If Reader’s Digest is right and laughter, indeed, is the best medicine, then there’s a cure for just about anything on the stage of South Coast Repertory — two and a half hours’ worth of nonstop hilarity, broken into three segments to give the audience, and the actors, some needed rest.

There’s simply no funnier play out there than Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off,” and when entrusted to a company of the caliber the repertory traditionally offers, the result is a perfect storm of comedy, a farcical kaleidoscope that simultaneously demands and diverts its audience’s attention.

Plays about theater itself are legion, but few come as close as Frayn’s masterpiece to capturing and sustaining a mood of pure hysterical glee and on so many different fronts. Director Art Manke — who also helmed South Coast’s similarly arduous comedy “Taking Steps” last season — mines gold out of every line and gesture.

The setting is a theater — in three separate locations — where an English troupe is rehearsing, and later performing, a similar farce titled “Nothing On,” which apparently revolves around a vanishing plate of sardines. As the actors struggle with the intricacies of the plot and their own increasingly complicated lives, “Noises Off” shifts from the sublime to the ridiculous with, as Alan Lay Lerner would put it, the speed of summer lightning.

The play’s centerpiece is Dotty Otley, who plays the slightly daft housekeeper around whom all the madness transpires. Veteran South Coast actress Kandis Chappell takes this plum role and embellishes it with a superb sense of comedic timing fused with escalating bafflement.

First among equals in this outlandish ensemble is Bill Brochtrup as an actor unable to finish a sentence when not actually performing. Brochtrup scores both for his denseness at the outset and maniacal jealous rage in the second act, glimpsed from backstage in one of the theater’s funniest sequences.

Kaleo Griffith enacts the frustrated, iron-handed director with a controlled passion that intensifies as he attempts to hold this crumbling project together. Jennifer Lyon is a major hoot as the ditsy blond actress who plays most of the show in her scanties and is continually losing a contact lens.

As the perennially confused actor who can’t stand the sight of blood (especially his own), Timothy Landfield creates a hilarious physical spectacle holding his nose while hopping around with his pants around his ankles. Nancy Bell maintains a cool, sophisticated air as the actress playing his wife and attempting to set things aright both on and off stage.

The veteran, hard-of-hearing actor in constant pursuit of an elusive liquor bottle is slyly interpreted by Nick Ullett. Winslow Corbett and Brian Hostenske supply breakneck support as the stage manager and overworked techie.

Set designer John Iacovelli should be credited twice — once for his intricate interior and again for the seedy backstage area which comprises the second act. Angela Balogh Calin has created some winning costumes (especially Lyon’s cheeky number).

It’s a pity that South Coast Repertory has taken this long to produce “Noises Off,” which has been around since 1982, but it’s a joy that this union finally has been consummated. Prepare to laugh yourself silly.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Noises Off”

WHERE: South Coast Repertory, Segerstrom Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

WHEN: 7:30 or 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays until March 8.

COST: $28 to $64

CALL: (714) 708-5555

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews appear Thursdays.