In 1923 there was THE TORCHBEARERS. In 1982 the stage was filled with hysterical
disasters during NOISES OFF. Now there is
THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG, the zany Laurence Olivier Award winner.
All three farces are plays about plays in which everything
that could go wrong does, and then some!
Even before the performance officially starts, the audience
quickly knows that things are not theater-normal.
Members of the cast crawl over and under auditorium chairs
and ask the audience to help them find a lost dog that is needed for the show,
but has escaped from backstage. A member
of the audience is dragged up on stage to help mend a broken mantelpiece while techies
try and repair pieces of scenery with masking tape. (Yes, this looks like a disaster in the making.)
No wonder with their financial problems the set for THE MURDER AT HAVERSHAM MANOR, which we are about to see, looks like it is about to fall down. (Woops, plot revelation alert!)
As the “program” states, “Sanford Meisner (an acting teacher who
developed an approach to acting instruction that is now known as the Meisner
Technique in which the emphasis is on the reality of doing) once said,
‘Acting is behaving truthfully,’ so we immediately changed all the names in the
play to our own names and cut the murder, the manor house setting and any other
element that we hadn’t personally experienced.”
That, in and of itself, should prepare everyone who reads the creative
Playbill of what idiocy is to come.
What we soon realize is that we are viewing a play within a play and even the playbill is that of two different shows.
We also learn that our original observations were right and the play within the play is going to be plagued with numerous disasters.
In the process of the production, doors jam, windows fall out, set pieces fall off, a platform collapses in a series of slow drops with members of the cast perched on it. Chaos reigns.
There are line flubs, late entrances, cast members are knocked out by doors which are opened at the wrong time, misplaced props, missed cues, repeated, wrong liquids drunk, mispronunciations, cast substitutions, physical violence between actors and the eventual collapse of the entire set.
The production of THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG opened on Broadway in April, 2017, following a long London run. The play then moved off-Broadway in February of 2019.
THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG is farce at its highest level. Director Matt DiCarlo, who directed this production (Mark Bell directed the original Broadway show) pulls out all the stops. Shtick, prat-falls, fisticuffs, double-takes, thrown glass vases, and a swordfight complete with swords that break, are all included.
Oh, and then there is the dog. Well, much as the rabbit in HARVEY, an imaginary dog who plays a vital role in the plot. (Come on now, could I make this up?)
The beauty of the whole production, and the resulting hilarity, is that the director and the cast know how to do farce well. The audience laughs at the lines and the actions, not over-acting, which is often the trait of farce gone-bad.
According to the play within the play program, Chris Bean not only plays the leading role of Inspector Carter, but he also directed, designed the set and the costumes, as well as making the props, managing the box office, doing the press and public relations, and acting as the voice coach. (Oh, what a man!)
The “real” cast, Ryan Vincent Anderson (Trevor), Matt Harrington (Chris), Chris Lanceley (Jonathan), Brent Bateman (Robert), Bartley Booz (Dennis), Ashley Reyes (Sandra), Matt Walker (Max) and Bianca Horn (Annie) form into a unit that plays off each other to create a symphony of hysteria.
No one can be singled out, as the interaction between the group, as they face boundless obstacles, is a perfect blending.
Nigel Hook not only designed a set that works perfectly, but
must be a mechanical genius to have devised all the set disasters.
Capsule Judgment: Like any well-written farce, the quality of
the ridiculousness is only as effective as the cast and director. In the case of THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG, all
of the needed elements are present and hysteria reigns.
What: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG
Where:
New World Stages
When: Open-ended run
