Click here for more Picture this Post Broadway in New York Reviews and Previews.
Maybe you’ve performed in a play at some point in your life. Think back to that. Then think about everything that could possibly have gone wrong. Your worst nightmares and more you can’t even imagine– all happening in the same performance. Think about that and you’ll have a good picture of THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG. The premise of this comedy that opened on Broadway in spring of 2017 is that we’re watching a college production of a murder mystery – maybe something Agatha Christie might have written. It’s called “The Murder at Haversham Manor” and is purportedly being performed by “The Cornley University Drama Society.”
The trouble begins even before the play begins. Actually, even before that, as even the printing of the Playbills has gone wrong. The play’s title is falling off the cover page. Inside the theatre, crew members are nervously nailing down set pieces that stubbornly fall, searching for tools they’ve lost and enlisting the help of an innocent audience member to hold things in place. Once things are reasonably together, the society’s supposed president, Chris Bean (Mark Evans) gives a curtain speech that suggests the Cornley University Drama Society has had a checkered history and that this night is unlikely be any better than any other. (The faux title page of the program for THE MURDER AT HAVERSHAM MANOR lists Chris as not only the director, but also the scenic designer, costume designer, prop maker, box office manager, press and pr rep, dramaturg, voice coach, dialect coach, and fight choreographer. Oh, and Chris also plays a leading role as the detective.
Every theatre artist’s worst nightmares
The mishaps range from simple forgetting of lines and misplaced props to out-and-out chaos. If this might sound like enough material for a short sketch, you might be amazed at how the insanity sustains itself through this two-hour (including one intermission) play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields. Some of the humor arises innocently enough – how a substitute for a misplaced prop can render dialogue meaningless – or in the case of the paint thinner drunk in place of water - can be nearly lethal. Or how standing in the wrong spot on stage can be physically dangerous (as several cast members become knocked out by a door). Or how a distracted stage manager (Akron Watson) can cause havoc on stage. As the play goes wrong and “wronger,” the results range from embarrassing to cataclysmic.
The set by Nigel Hook begins as an almost realistic, not-too-cheesy drawing room of the elegant Haversham Manor. Hooks deserves special praise, though, not only for the look of the set but its mechanics. Things fall down and apart all around the actors in a manner that’s as amazing as the physical skill and comic timing of the actors.
THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG salutes the never-say-die spirit of theater folk
While the humor has great gobs of slapstick, it has a lot of heart as well in the way the actors and crew keep soldiering on, regardless of what happens. (At least those who remain conscious keep soldiering on). Despite the calamities on stage, the actors struggle to keep going, to try to find a way to pretend nothing is wrong, in hopeless hope the audience won’t notice. There’s the actor (Jonathan Fielding) who is dead as the play begins but has trouble quite staying dead. And the young actor Max (Alex Mandell), who can’t resist a smile aimed at the audience when he earns some laughs or applause.
Ashley Bryant is Annie, the stagehand who gamely steps in to read a role after an actress becomes incapacitated and finds she rather likes acting. Amelia McClain is the leading lady – a bit of a diva – who finds she must defend her position against this newly ambitious stagehand. And the stiff-upper-lip British resolve of the other characters (the Butler, played by Harrison Unger; and the dead man’s best friend (Clifton Duncan) make their efforts to cope all the nobler and funnier.
Broadway in New York pick for people looking for a fun time
Such physical humor as is found in THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG might be viewed by some as lowbrow, but there’s no denying the consummate skill that must go into a performance like this. The actors, directed by Mark Bell, are not only first-rate clowns, but like the silent-film comic actor Buster Keaton, they are athletes and stunt persons of the highest order. We view this play with the same sense of awe that we might experience in seeing a circus high wire or trapeze artists.
In our current time, when writers are frequently seeking to comment on current politics, directors are reinterpreting classics to imprint contemporary themes upon them, it’s refreshing to find at least one alternative that seeks to do nothing but entertain. It’s a show you can share with anyone of any age, gender, or political persuasion. Anyone, perhaps, except those who never admit to making mistakes.
When:
Closes January 6, 2019
Tuesday – Thursday at 7:00pm, Friday & Saturday at 8:00 pm; Matinees at 2:00pm on Wednesday and Saturday and 3 pm on Sunday.
Where:
Lyceum Theatre
149 W. 45th St.
New York, NY 10036
Tickets:
$30.00 - $199.00
For tickets and more information visit the website for THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG
All photos by Jeremy Daniel
About the Author:
John Olson is an arts carnivore who is particularly a love of music, theatre and film. He studied piano, trombone and string bass into his college years, performing in bands and orchestras in high school and college, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While working as an advertising agency account manager, he began a second career as an arts journalist and is now principal of John Olson Communications, a marketing and public relations business serving arts and entertainment clients.
