Review: Clarence Brown Theatre’s ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ Roars With Laughter

 

In the Clarence Brown Theatre’s production of The Play That Goes Wrong, the question confronting audiences is not whether they will laugh at the breathlessly farcical goings-on in this parody of British murder mysteries, but whether they will roar so loudly at one gag that they miss the next, even more outrageous one. Shakespeare knew it — audiences love to see amateur actors exposed for their silly naïveté and arrogance as much as they love to see things go haplessly wrong on stage for all the right reasons. And, in The Play That Goes Wrong, directed with comic buffoonery by Hunter Foster, we have all of that.

The premise is hilariously obvious. The Cornley Drama Society, a British community theatre, is mounting The Murder at Haversham Manor, a manor-house whodunit with the usual twists and turns. Naturally, there is a butler, a suspicious dead body, and a police inspector called in to solve a murder. But, it all begins to go wrong; doors stick, set pieces fall, props are in the wrong place, and actors are accidentally knocked unconscious by swinging doors as they try to use their wits to solve a bad situation. Given that it is a play-within-a-play, we also get to witness stagehands struggling to solve failures, but making it comically worse.

Amusingly, The Murder at Haversham Manor has its own pages in the CBT program book that also include fake bios of the “actors,” illustrating the pains that director Foster has taken to legitimize the comic turn and make it believable for the audience. Carried a step further, the director of The Murder at Haversham Manor, Chris Bean (Sammy Pontello), opens the evening trying to reassure the audience that everything is okay despite the troupe’s questionable history of having to re-work plays due to budget, e.g. Chekhov’s “Two Sisters” and the musical “Cat.” Mr. Pontello’s marvelously anxious Bean then goes on to play the role of the Police Inspector Carter.

Although fictionalized amateur actors, in general, are ridiculed here for their hubris and incompetence, the actual CBT actors in The Play That Goes Wrong have brilliantly mastered the comedy and comic energy, both physical and language, that this vehicle requires. The role of the butler, the painfully challenged Perkins, was practically made for David Brian Alley who takes the audience along on his character’s wild struggles with a short memory and long words.

Steve Sherman, a member of the UT Theatre faculty, plays Max Bennett, an actor basking almost religiously in what he thinks is acclaim for his great dramatic abilities in the role of Cecil Haversham. Cecil, in true murder mystery fashion, is brother to the not-quite murder victim, Charles Haversham (Yashashvi Choudhary). Charles’ fiancée, Florence Colleymore (Gabriela Bulka) is clearly marrying for money, but is one of the suspects – but then, who isn’t? Bulka’s mix of physicality and sex-ish comedy was outrageously funny. Florence’s brother, Thomas Colleymore (Denzel Dejournette), in a hilarious Scotch-drinking bit, takes dual records for the number of spit-takes taken in one evening, not to mention sporting the most ridiculous plaid outfit ever (costume designer Alex Heder).

On the backstage side—as poor Annie the stage manager, Molly Brennan is brilliant as that character found in every community theatre that latches onto a problem and rides it to its most illogical and dangerous end. Typical too, was the brutish lighting and sound operator, Tina (Laura Beth Wells), who has seen and done it all in her 20 years of working with the Cornley Drama Society crowd. As expected, Tina has a story, and Wells made a meal of it.

Yet another comic actor in the play is Sophie Smrcka’s titanic set (in more ways than one), deserving of its own accolades for being designed to fall down while looking like an epic theatrical tragedy. Who knew one little post was holding up the manor’s second floor?

Despite the roar of laughter at The Play That Goes Wrong, one should keep in mind the quote credited to character actor Edmund Gwenn: “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Kudos to the cast of The Play That Goes Wrong for making comedy look easy and to its creative staff and crew for letting us laugh at someone else’s misfortune without feeling guilty.