Walling, who won Harvard's version of the best actor Oscar, the Levi prize, before her graduation this spring, is excellent in a deceptively simple role. It is difficult to play perk and spaciness with depth and comedic timing. To Walling also falls the burden of illustrating the title of "Nothing On" by tripping and skipping over the stage for three hours as two characters clad only in what the housekeeper calls her "smalls." Let's not forget that this is a British sex farce.

Her companion in blondness is Aaron Zelman as Freddy Fellowes, a well-meaning method actor who can only be described as dumb. Zelman compels mention of the film version of "Noises Off." His characterization of Freddy is unmistakably like Christopher Reeves' in the same role. Freddy craves motivation for his every movement on stage, prompting Lloyd into a deadpan Freudian probe of Freddy's character's relationship with groceries.

Holding everything together is Belinda, played by Francesca Delbanco, the mother hen and company gossip. Delbanco's exaggerated facial expression seem slightly overdone it the first act, but serve her well in the second as the action moves to pantomime. Her clever miming allowed the audience to catch every word--and say it aloud for her. By the third act, Belinda is trying to lead the company out of the woods, improvising for the mentally and verbally challenged. Delbanco's gives a perfectly outrageous delivery of Belinda's efforts, summing up an entire scene by announcing loudly to the audience, while doggedly staying in character, "The main thing is that the income tax people are after us."

Belinda's exertions are not enough to save the show, or to keep theatrical institution Selsdon Mowbray on the wagon. Selsdon is the old dog who keeps a step ahead of the company, despite his intermittent deafness and propensity for napping. Ian Lithgow as Selsdon is yet another solid cast member as the troupe's elderly bane and balm. His Selsdon is undeniably aged, while carrying the confidence of endless theatrical experience on his stooped shoulders.

Katie Guillory and Mark Fish as Poppy and Tim, the silently suffering stage managers and "techies" of "Nothing On," are a genre immediately recognized by their counterparts behind sets all over the world. Lloyd, realizing that Tim hasn't slept for days preparing for their opening night, magnanimously sends him off to "rest" by doing the company tax returns. The program for "Noises Off" lists Heidi Curran as both stage manager and costume designer. One has to hope the techies of this show are more rested than those of "Nothing On."

Guillory and Fish are wonderful as the only members of the company who don't want to be on stage, yet constantly find themselves called to step in as the cast's backstage dramas absorb them more than their entrances and cues.

Poppy brings the house down when she is finally pushed over the edge at the end of the second act. Tim has his moment in the limelight when, called upon to understudy the drunken Selsdon, he finds himself one ofthreeburglars center stage reciting Selsdon's lines.

HRST nearly does the impossible in giving Frayn's script the dual-leveled comedic chaos it demands. "Noises Off" is a guaranteed evening of laughter, and ends the adventurous HRST season with a successful staging gamble. It is also the last chance Harvard audiences may have to claim recent graduates Fish, Guillory, Lithgow and Walling as their own before others discover them.