Slamming doors and sardines… That’s “Noises Off” in a nutshell.

“Noises Off” is directed by Rick Mokler, who is a well-established name in the Santa Barbara City College Theatre Group. He has directed over 52 plays during his 20-year tenure at City College. His production is showing at the Garvin Theatre March 5 through 22.

The first act takes place on a two-story set with seven doors and a confused housekeeper. Quickly, the audience finds out they are watching a play within a play called “Nothing On.”

From the back of the house, Lloyd, the “director,” who is played by Jay Carlander, calls to a confused Dotty, played by Ann Dusenberry, critiquing her bad performance and giving her instructions on what to do next.

It’s a very dramatic comedy, a.k.a. a farce, that is set in 1982. It is called “the funniest farce ever written,” although I’m not sure I can agree with this critic.

This play exploits just about every cliché in the book, and barely pulls off doing so.

Michael Frayn, the playwright, got his idea for the play by watching a short he had written from backstage. Thus, in the second act of “Noises Off” you witness the behind the scenes of the production.

Throughout the scene, you’ll bear witness to a bit with an axe, a bottle of Jameson and a cactus.

This act is almost entirely mimed, and alludes silently to the array of romantic affairs going on in secret.

It’s much more than your traditional love triangle, although I’m not good enough at geometry to name the proper shape for the number trysts happening here.

In the second act, things that seemed like mistakes in the first are explained.

If you are thinking of bringing kids, think again. Much of the humor is aimed at an older audience, and the language certainly is as well.

The cursing is sparse, but yelled so loudly that it is hard to miss.

Act three is when the play “Nothing On” begins to fall apart. The company has been touring for months, and the actors are clearly fed up with each other. There are a lot of falls, nosebleeds and confusion in this act.

By now, one can begin to expect what puns they are going to hear, considering they’ve been told three times. However, the dialogue is so jumbled up because the cast is so over it that it becomes really funny.

The show certainly has its moments, and the audience feels about the same as Garry, played by Sean Jackson, when he says, “What on Earth is going on?”

“It was really good. I didn’t expect it; there was a lot going on,” said Emma Persson, theater major.

All in all, the show is full of great acting by its cast and does a good job of explaining why at first it may seem like bad acting.

To buy tickets, visit theatergroupsbcc.com. The show will run for two weeks at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday.