BWW Previews: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG at The Playhouse

Aisle Say loves the ludicrous, is passionate for the preposterous, waxes for the wackiness, swoons for the silliness. Hear Ye. Hear Ye. Bring on LEND ME A TENOR, SPAMALOT, THE IMAGINARY INVALID and others of that genre. Absurdity. Can there ever be enough?

Are my dear readers similar fellow travelers and, as such, equally addicted to lunacy? If so, the time is right to see THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG coming to The Playhouse March 12-15. It is a show so ridiculous it makes you feel almost ashamed about loving it. This Olivier Award-winning comedy (the UK's Tony's) is a hilarious hybrid of Monty Python and Sherlock Holmes. It has been translated and licensed for productions in over 30 countries and an acknowledged worldwide wonder of idiocy.

Welcome to opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor where things are quickly going from bad to utterly disastrous. With an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can't play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines). THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG features an utterly terrible fictional script executed utterly terribly by a terrible group of fictional actors, enveloped in a real-life brilliant script executed brilliantly by a very real and very brilliant group of actors. You only realize you've been smiling, gasping and laughing for nearly two hours when it comes to not smiling upon your return to the regular world.

Aisle Say had the opportunity to chat with Ashley D. Kelley, who plays the Stage Manager with the show now on the national tour. My first question was the tour itself. I caught up with Ashley in Scranton. The run closes today and opens in Texas 2 days later for 2 days, then AL, IN, VA, TN before it finally roosts for 4 days here. Some are one-nighters. "Yes, commented Kelley, it's a grind. It's wonderful we have 4 days in Delaware". (4 days in the same city is a godsend). That said, in interviewing 10's of touring performers over the years, I've never chatted with one who could not stop chuckling over the hilarity of the production. "All 8 of us simply LOVE this show. I've never had so much fun in my life. Our audiences feel the same. We've never not had a Standing O. It's so incredibly rewarding".

Farce must be exhaustively choreographed. Indeed, when directors are asked what is easier to stage; Shakespeare or farce, to a man/woman they choose the former. The production has similarities to the legendary comedies of silent film icon Max Sennett.

During the performance, a play within a play, a plethora of disasters befall the cast, including doors sticking, props falling from the walls, and floors collapsing. Cast members are seen misplacing props, forgetting lines (in one scene, an actor repeats an earlier line of dialogue and causes the dialogue sequence triggered by that line to be repeated, ever more frenetically, several times), missing cues, breaking character, mispronouncing words, stepping on fingers, being hidden in a grandfather clock and being manhandled off stage, with one cast member being knocked unconscious and her replacement refusing to yield when she returns. The climax is a tribute to a scene in Buster Keaton's 1928 film STEAMBOAT BILL, when virtually the whole of the remaining set collapses.

You will be right in being in attendance. Just prepare yourself for everything around you to go very very WRONG!

March 12 - 15 The Playhouse 302.888.0200

Next Up: THE COLOR PURPLE April 16-19