Susan Granger’s review of “The Play That Goes Wrong” (Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre)
For sheer fun and laughter, you’re 100% right in choosing the hilarious “The Play That Goes Wrong.”
Imported from London’s West End after winning the coveted Olivier Award, it’s the Corney University Drama Society’s disaster-prone production of Susie H.K. Brideswell’s vintage “Murder at Haversham Manor.”
Even as the cast and crew are making last minute adjustments to the set, it begins with a warm welcome by the Society’s director, Chris Bean (Henry Shields), and the subsequent discovery of Charles Haversham’s corpse in the drawing room of his proper English country house, followed an investigation by Inspector Carter (Henry Shields).
As the whodunit unfolds, there’s deceased Charles (Greg Tannahill), and the suspects, including Charles’ deceitful brother, Max (Dave Hearn); Charles’ duplicitous fiancée, Sandra (Charlie Russell); Charles’ best-friend, Robert (Henry Lewis); and the old family butler, Perkins (Jonathan Sayer).
Meanwhile, as furniture falls, props flop, doors stick, scenery collapses and corpses walk, there’s the ubiquitous stage crew: distracted Trevor (Rob Falconer), who mismanages lights-and-sound while searching for his Duran Duran CD, and the hapless stage manager, Annie (played brilliantly by understudy Bryony Corrigan at the performance which I attended).
While the supremely talent cast delivers farcical slapstick performances, reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin, Monty Python and “Noises Off,” the biggest kudos go to the scenic and lighting designers Nigel Hook and Rick Mountjoy who create the visual mayhem.
Devised by the collaborative group known as the Mischief Theater, it’s cleverly scripted by twentysomethings Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields – from the London Academy of Dramatic Art (LAMBDA) – and adroitly directed by Mark Bell – with utmost precision and a not-so-subtle a nod to the receptiveness of American audiences.
There’s a line, “The set’s a bloody deathtrap,” and I’m told the all-British cast, making their Broadway debut, has acquired T-shirts stamped with that dialogue. I’m tempted to get one too…eagerly anticipating their sequels: “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” and “A Comedy about a Bank Robbery.”