“The Play That Goes Wrong” is apparently foolproof.
Of the Broadway touring version in San Francisco in 2019, I wrote, “hilarious,” and “my stomach hurt from laughing,” and “funny every step of the way.”
So how could the San Francisco Playhouse production, on a much smaller stage and presumably with fewer resources, be as good?
Good news: It’s better.
Basic elements of the 2015 Olivier Award-winning farce by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields (currently the 17th most-produced play in the U.S.) are the same:
- An identical scenic design (by Cody Tellis Rutledge), as required by the script, in which a ridiculously trite whodunnit “The Murder at Haversham Manor” performed by an amateur company goes more disastrously wrong than an actor’s worst nightmare, with things falling off walls, misplaced or non-existent props, doors that won’t open, a second floor that . . . well, no spoilers here
- Dead bodies that can’t seem to stay quite dead
- Spit take after spit take, a trope that never gets old
- Sound cues that misfire disastrously (Dan Holland, sound designer)
- Actors who can’t remember lines, go completely off-script, mispronounce words, overact (including a prolonged, histrionic death to end all histrionic stage deaths), the works
- Actors who disappear into, well, never mind, or even lose consciousness; terrified crew members who must step in on book for missing performers
And, of course, the hokey multiple-murder mystery itself, involving a mansion full of upper-class twits, a secret romance, a snooty detective, a pompous butler, a gardener whose fake mustache keeps falling off, a hysterical ingenue, etc.
It doesn’t matter actually whodunit, the chaos is such that by the end the plot is scrambled beyond comprehension.
So, if the funny business is basically the same, what makes this smaller, closer-up version of “The Play That Goes Wrong” so much better, so much, well, wronger, than the previous version seen in San Francisco?
For one thing, it’s clear by now that San Francisco Playhouse director Susi Damilano knows how to up the comic ante. Take note of her recent productions of “Clue” and “The 39 Steps.”
She goes all out here, too: Even the show’s program is a purposeful mess.
And the production itself is slightly interactive, beginning even before the lights go down, and continuing during intermission.
A rambunctious opening-night audience took full advantage: During one scene, a patron yelled to the detective, played by Phil Wong, one of the Bay Area’s finest comic actors, and he ad-libbed a despairing, “There’s supposed to be a fourth wall!”
Of the 2019 touring production’s cast, I concluded, “You don’t have to love slapstick to appreciate the expertise, and the sheer physical bravery, on display here.” The same is true for this locally created production.
This time around, San Francisco Playhouse regulars Wong, Patrick Russell (whose floppy hair, damp with sweat, has a comical life of its own), Renee Rogoff and other local actors including Greg Ayers, Joe Ayers, Adam Griffith, Tasi Alabastro and Erin Rose Solorio, are just as memorable for their distinctive characters as for their physical antics.
In fact, their characters are so precise, so desperately intent on making their disaster of a play work, they lift this comedy to sublime heights.
“The Play That Goes Wrong” continues through Nov. 9 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco. Tickets are $35-$135 at (415) 677-956 or sfplayhouse.org.
The post Review: Comedy lifted to sublime heights in San Francisco Playhouse’s ‘Play That Goes Wrong’ appeared first on Local News Matters.