Don't overthink it: This silly show may be what we need right now
The Play That Goes Wrong
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
June 24
Reviewed by CASSIE TONGUE
★★★½
It started in a 60-seat theatre above a London pub, and then took over the world. The Play That Goes Wrong – a farce about an amateur theatre troupe attempting to stage an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery – is that rare thing in contemporary theatre: a raging commercial smash.
This family-friendly show has been running in the West End for more than a decade and in Spain for almost as long, sparked a plethora of British 'Goes Wrong' TV series and specials, and has played all over the world. It's now back in Australia, wreaking havoc at the Sydney Opera House, after a buzzy 2017 debut.
The Play That Goes Wrong veers wildly off script. Credit: Hagen Hopkins
The show is fast-paced, silly, and engineered to wring every laugh it can out of its material: as the company tries to perform their serious murder mystery, they're contending with mislaid props, actors who don't know their lines (or can't pronounce them) and technicians too busy scrolling to land the right music cue. There are pratfalls, missed cues, and a set that's threatening to come down around the cast at any moment. Who did the murders? We find out eventually, but that's not the point: the point is the carefully scripted chaos.
Originally directed by Mark Bell, overseen here by associate director Anna Marshall, and with a cast (which includes Aunty Donna's Joe Kosky) who have settled into their roles during this Australia/New Zealand tour, it's a polished piece that encourages scenery-chewing.
There's so much to laugh at that it'll catch even the sourest audience member at least once, but you'll get the most out of it if you like your mayhem surface level and easily digestible. There's not much pathos behind all the comedy, meaning that existential human bent of the greatest farces is nowhere to be found. Instead, this is pure escapist comedy: a series of gags, mostly physical, designed to delight.
The cleverest jokes are those feats of engineering, mechanics and rigging when the set itself 'goes wrong'; there's a collapsing set piece that adds the frisson of danger that propels farces to another level. The worst were dated in 2017 and feel ancient now, where the two women onstage are reduced to stereotypes of hysteria and jealous competition, and a moment a potential kiss between two men in the middle of a casting mishap is played for panic. Designed to add to the growing hysteria of a falling-apart production, these elements drag down the mood, more noise than joke.
Am I guilty of overthinking a simple-pleasure comedy? Probably. And I don't want to discount the power this show could have to give kids (recommended for those aged eight and up) their chance to be bitten by the theatre bug, or to give audiences of any age a chance to blow off steam in an increasingly dark world by just having a reason to laugh.
That's probably the best lens through which to view this play: it's a daffy, low-stakes outing that just wants you to cackle – or at least crack a smile – and get those feel-good endorphins flowing.
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