Featured Photo Courtesy of the Center for the Arts
Story by Marshal Clemmer
Watch as actors work their way through a 1920s murder mystery starting with ill-timed curtains, actors forgetting their lines, mispronounced words, misplaced props, actors missing their cues and grabbing the wrong props, several stiff drinks of Windex, actors accidentally knocking out the leading lady, forcing stagehands to be impromptu understudies, shoddy scenery that literally falls apart and the worst thing of all: inappropriate Duran Duran. However, as every actor knows, “The show must go on.” Fortunately for them this actor’s nightmare is just a play within “The Play That Goes Wrong.”
“The Play That Goes Wrong” had the most spectacular opening night train-wreck of character Chris Lancely’s directorial debut of “The Murder at Haversham Manor.”
Henry Lewis, Henry Shields and Jonathan Sayer’s “The Play That Goes Wrong” is a wonderful melodramatic farce that plays on both the actors’ and audience’s fears. After weeks of prep work, dress rehearsals, line memorization, stage blocking and tech rehearsals, the last thing that anyone wants is one small mishap that breaks the suspension of disbelief for the audience. But in this case, the audience couldn’t wait to see what new mishap the real life performers had to endure. That soon becomes an addiction.
By the time our unfortunate director makes a big opening speech about his play “The Murder at Haversham Manor,” our two lacky stagehands already primed the audience of what to expect in a last-ditch effort to fix the mantlepiece and a door “before” the start of the play.
Director Aaron Johnson’s fast-paced vision of this play worked beautifully. By not giving the audience time to think, he created a disturbing world full of schadenfreude. We couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the actors playing actors as other characters trying not to break character as their world, in some incidents, literally falls apart around them. Some succeed, while other actors fail and break the fourth wall.
Tucker Young’s performance as Max Bennet playing dual roles of Cecil Haversham and Arthur the gardener demonstrated this concept as Bennet constantly breaks the fourth wall. Bennet gleefully milks the audience from repeating entire lines for an extra laugh to slowly exiting a scene and waving bye to the audience.
However, his co-star Donovan Hughes’s performance of Robert Grove playing the role of Thomas Colleymore is on the opposite end. Grove as Colleymore tried his best to not break character regardless of what happened. Even after unintentionally knocking his co-star Sandra unconscious, who was played by Karisha Glover.
The excitement and joy of “The Play That Goes Wrong” doesn’t come from watching our intrepid heroes endure their seemingly endless suffering. It is from seeing how these actors inside the play persevered to the bitter end, even when there was total chaos on stage and the scenery finally crumbles. That despite all odds, it was all worth the torment for the exciting conclusion of “The Murder of Haversham Manor” in “The Play That Goes Wrong.”
To contact Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines or on X at @MTSUSidelines.
