‘The Play That Goes Wrong’: An Ironically Remarkable Piece Of Theatre

How ironic it is that The Play That Goes Wrong, playing now at the Opera House, is likely to be one of the most tightly composed pieces of stagecraft to hit the Sydney theatre scene this year.

Returning to Australia after first playing here a decade ago, The Play That Goes Wrong thrives in the utter paradox of its existence. Though it’s about a show that does indeed go very wrong, its wicked sense of humour and impeccable sense of timing serve as a reminder of exactly how excellent a pair comedy and theatre make.

The Cornley Drama Society are a woefully unlucky group of theatremakers. Usually vastly understaffed, they’ve received an unusually high amount of money and talent to bring a 1920s murder mystery play called The Murder at Haversham Manor to life.

Chris Bean (Jonathan Martin), the lead actor, director, set designer and dialect coach (among many other behind-the-scenes roles) declares before the show that it might be Cornley’s best production ever and his personal masterpiece. However, things have already gone wrong before the show starts as Chris and other members of the “crew” run around the audience and stage trying to fix the set and locate dogs or Duran Duran CDs.

An almost lethal bout of hilarity

Indeed, The Play That Goes Wrong begins its almost lethal bout of hilarity from the moment you sit down. But only by understanding what makes good theatre can you make it deliberately ‘bad’, and it’s clear that this is a cast and crew with lots of love for the artform who relish the opportunity to create laughs by eschewing its rules.

Walking into the theatre, it’d be easy to mistake this for any other murder mystery play. The set depicts a luscious 1920s era manor in impeccable condition… well, besides a constantly falling mantlepiece anyway. Yet soon, it reveals itself as a carefully constructed series of dominoes that seem destined to fall in the most malevolent way possible.

The brilliance of this, and The Play That Goes Wrong in general, lies in this very dynamic. Of course, nothing is actually going off script, but the fact that it feels so authentically like watching a disasterpiece production on both a scripting and production level is precisely what makes the show such a consistently hilarious affair.

From the smallest detail like a misplaced prop to bigger setpieces like sparking lights and a falling upper level, it’s equally hysterical and harrowing to watch The Murder at Haversham Manor turn into something like a less lethal Final Destination trap.

It also helps immensely that this cast is absolutely sensational. It’s delightfully meta as each actor’s character is also an actor playing a character trying to stay in character amidst rapidly decaying conditions.

The aforementioned Jonathan Martin is excellent as the show’s ‘director’, and the rising level of frustration he portrays is absolutely hysterical. Joe Kosky’s Robert is remarkable at delivering both the verbal and physical comedy required, while Tom Hayward’s Dennis serves up some utterly gut-busting line readings.

The wickedly talented cast of The Play That Goes Wrong

Edmund Eramiha and Olivia Charalambous shine as stage hands who become unwillingly involved in the show, with the latter soon competing with a delightful Stephanie Astrid John for the rather vapid role of Florence. Meanwhile Brodie Masini extracts constant laughs out of being a corpse for most of the show.

Yet the show’s highlight for me has to be Sebastiano Pitruzzello as Max. I was shocked to find it was Pitruzzello’s professional theatre debut, given that he was consistently responsible for some of the biggest laughs of the show.

The character of Max is a starry-eyed youngun enamoured with being able to perform for an audience, and his constant looking to the audience and self-congratulations for remembering his lines or improvising are hysterical as is.

Pitruzzello takes it up a whole other level though, imbuing the character with an irresistible charm and sense of humour that makes him the standout character of the show… even if he’d be a difficult co-star.

It all adds up to make The Play That Goes Wrong a remarkable marriage of physical and verbal comedy, paired with a strong understanding and mastery of what makes this art form so great. In its intentional mistakes and hilarious cast, it reveals itself as a lovingly crafted and uniquely theatrical work that reminds us why we love theatre in the first place.

The Play That Goes Wrong is playing at the Sydney Opera House until August 3rd before touring across Australia. More information here!