By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
For the latest touring Broadway in Tucson show, local audiences are uniquely trained after more than 40 years of visiting Gaslight Theatre, where the biggest laughs come from something unexpectedly going wrong onstage.
Now Broadway in Tucson takes this concept to a whole new level – a level somewhere out beyond the stratosphere – with its hyper-kinetic comedy of chaos titled “The PLAY That Goes WRONG.” All those capital letters are to add emphasis. And in this production you can't have too much of that.
In fact, the producers of “TPTGW” are eager to go several steps beyond that extra mile to create the illusion that nothing like this disaster of thespianic proportions has ever happened.
Even Broadway in Tucson's own playbill includes two full “dummy” pages describing the Cornley University Drama Society's efforts to present a traditional British who-dun-it for American audiences, “The Murder at Haversham Manor.” There's also a listing of the make-believe cast members and the show's creative team.
As the audience filed into Centennial Hall and settled down on opening night, an apparent backstage technician came out to shout at those people already in their seats, and say something else about Duran Duran. It was deliberately confusing.
There is another long speech by a properly dressed gentleman standing in front of the curtain. Then that curtain finally rises to reveal the sitting room and library of a generic British manor. But, oops, the man playing the presumed dead body rushed out to take his prone position on the fainting couch.
All of that is just the introduction to 2 ½ hours of madcap mayhem that will surpass any theatrical craziness you've ever seen anywhere else before. Guaranteed.
Missed cues and misbehaving stage props are only the beginning as this cast, willing to risk life and limb as well as body and soul, struggles mightily to keep the plot moving along and the show going on.
Slapstick humor is their stock in trade, with lots of falling down, getting knocked over and being thrown about. Their stunts include a fireplace mantle that falls off the wall and a stagehand who quickly appears to hold everything the script has instructed the actors to put on the now-missing mantle.
There are a couple of long and elaborate skits reminiscent of the physical comedy in silent movies made famous by the likes of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. No one is ever silent in this play, however.
Shouting at a vein-popping pace, the actors go into extreme overacting mode whenever a painting or other bit of decor falls off the wall at an awkward moment. Never mind what happens when a piece of furniture seems to catch on fire and another stagehand rushes out with a gushing fire extinguisher. The more intense the absurdity the more intense the applause.
My personal favorite scene was a choreographed group confrontation that begins in confusion and continues on, but keeps ending up in the same spot. Then the actors would go back to the confusion part, start their conversation over but, just like in the movie “Groundhog Day,” keep ending up in the same spot again. By the sixth time they repeated this, the audience was helpless with laughter.
There is a plot (so to speak) for “The Murder At Haversham Manor.” The dead body that can't stop moving around is Charles Haversham (Chris French). His brother Cecil (Adam Petherbridge) is in love with Charles' fiance Florence Colleymoore (Jacquelin Jarrold), whose brother Thomas (Michael Thatcher) keeps insisting it isn't murder but suicide. Or maybe it is the other way around.
You can be sure the fun is more important than the facts. Anybody who loves theater needs to see “The PLAY That Goes WRONG.” Of course all the fans of Gaslight Theatre need to see it, too.
For you who insist that nothing less that Shakespeare will ever touch your lips, you have been warned.
Performances continue at Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd., through Sunday, Jan. 19. Show times are 7;30 p.m. Jan.15-16; 8 p.m. Jan. 17; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Jan.18; 1 p.m. Jan. 19. Tickets start at $35. For additional details, broadwayintucson.com
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