REVIEW: This play keeps going wrong and wrong and wrong
Photo: Ashley N. Hildreth and Ryan Vincent Anderson star in The Play That Goes Wrong. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Daniel / Provided by BBB with permission.
The Play That Goes Wrong, created by the Mischief theater company, has had quite the run around the world. There is still a production running in London, plus a United Kingdom tour and United States tour. The Broadway show ran for a long time and then transferred to off-Broadway’s New World Stages, where it has been stationed ever since. The show went on hiatus during the pandemic, and then a few weeks ago, the Big Apple welcomed back the comedy and started the laughs once again.
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 has disrupted theatrical plans much of the New York City theater community, but The Play That Goes Wrong keeps on going. Performances are scheduled through May.
The show depicts the mounting of a theatrical production called The Murder at Haversham Manor, which has a sprinkle of Agatha Christie and a dash of Sherlock Holmes. It’s a classic whodunnit, but the assembled actors and crew members who attempt to bring the mystery to life are woefully unprepared for the theatrical mishaps that occur during the performance. Eventually the crowd cares less about whodunnit and more about the actors and their livelihoods as the sets fall apart, fire spews, poison is poured in bountiful supply and Duran Duran blasts from the speakers.
Some of the cast of this off-Broadway version have been with the show for quite some time. Matt Harrington plays Chris Bean, the director and one of the stars of the murderous show. He tries to keep everything together, even as everything falls apart around him. His dedication to the material and insistence on ensuring the audience stops laughing are comedic gold.
Bartley Booz, who plays Dennis, is hilarity fully realized. His facial expressions, including a wide-eyed stare that he may have flubbed his Iines, make him an easy target for scorn as the theatrical performance loses its way. He seems to be on the brink of crying each time something else goes wrong. It’s a wonderful, Monty Python-esque performance.
Ashley N. Hildreth, who plays Annie, is equally hilarious. She tries to keep the actual set together, using tape and tools to ensure that the wooden boards, mantelpiece and walls don’t fail the cast. She’s content being behind the scenes, that is until the calamity on stage is so paramount that she needs to emerge from the backstage area and take her turn in the spotlight. What ensues is so much fun.
The rest of the cast consists of Jesse Aaronson as lovable, crowd-pleasing Max; Brent Bateman as actor of the highest order Robert; Ryan Vincent Anderson as Duran Duran-loving Trevor; Chris Lanceley as perpetually dead Jonathan; and Maggie Weston as Sandra, who sees stars after getting hit on the head.
There are few noticeable changes between the pre-pandemic run of the show and what is currently being presented at New World Stages. One change at a recent performance was that the actors didn’t descend into the crowd looking for a lost dog. Being that the performers are unmasked and the audience is masked, that seems like a necessary edit and the safest choice.
The laughs are still present and accounted for. The audience, ranging in age, loves watching how the murder mystery slowly comes undone, eventually leading to an apocalyptic finale that looks like it hurts. Even though everything proves destructive, there’s a specificity to the movement of the performers that ensures they (and the audience) don’t get hurt as the play “goes wrong.” Glass is broken, beams get in the way, fake snow is thrown, and pictures can’t stay on walls, but somehow the cast members survive until the final curtain.
The Play That Goes Wrong is one of the funniest shows to ever run in New York City, and one can only hope that it continues its wrong-filled run for many years to come.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Play That Goes Wrong, directed by Matt DiCarlo, continues at New World Stages in Manhattan. Original Broadway direction by Mark Bell. Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields. Starring Jesse Aaronson, Brent Bateman, Bartley Booz, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Chris Lanceley, Matt Harrington, Ashley N. Hildreth and Maggie Weston. Running time: 2 hours. Click here for more information and tickets.
