Theatre in Review: The Play That Goes Wrong (Lyceum Theatre)The Play That Goes Wrong is the play that asks the question, Why isn't Michael Frayn calling his lawyer? This new slapstick stage farce, imported from London, is such a blatant rip-off of Frayn's now-classic Noises Off that one hardly knows where to begin. I guess you could call it Noises Off: Amateur Edition. The premise is that we're seeing a production of The Murder at Haversham Manor, a sub-Mousetrap country-house mystery, as presented by the Cornley University Drama Society. And things go, you know, wrong, epically so: Cues will be missed, props will disappear, physical mayhem will abound, and the set will be subjected to a cataclysmic deconstruction. The main difference between The Play That Goes Wrong and Noises Off is that the latter takes the time to establish recognizable characters, enmeshing them in a web of relationships that play out on stage, as they appear in a third-rate sex farce. The Play That Goes Wrong is little more than a procession of gags, sometimes executed with tremendous dexterity, but most of them unconnected to anything resembling reality. They are gags for gags' sake. We are tipped off to the play's method right at the top, when Chris, the director of The Murder at Haversham Manor, offers a brief talk in which he laments that, in the past, the troupe had been so strapped for cash and volunteers that its productions included Two Sisters, The Lion and the Wardrobe, and Cat. These are the sort of routine comedy-writer castoffs that might have passed muster in the dying days of the English music halls, but it tells us that a promising, if derivative, setup has no loyalty to anything but the next joke -- good, bad, or indifferent. Noises Off presents its play-within-a-play three times: in rehearsal; in performance, but from a backstage point of view; and near the end of the tour, when the production has become a shambles. The Play That Goes Wrong is a two-hour version of that third act, quickly descending into chaos -- without regard to how real human beings might really behave as things fall apart on stage. Soon after the discovery of the body, the play's butler, in a prop mix-up, serves paint thinner rather than stage whiskey to the others. The first time it happens, it cues a massive spit take -- but the script of The Murder at Haversham Manor requires that the butler offer two refills and, rather than discreetly pretending to drink the poison, everyone quaffs it down again and again, repeating a barely acceptable gag to the vanishing point. The butler, by the way, has many of his lines written on his hand, which leads to embarrassing mispronunciations of words like "façade" -- he says "fa-kayde" -- as if he had never been in rehearsal; the bit is repeated to rapidly diminishing returns. And so it goes. The set has a small second level, which is reached by an extremely balky elevator -- as if a poverty-struck amateur group would have access to such an elaborate piece of machinery. The production is loaded with weird musical cues -- for example, a sinister flourish when someone utters the word "murder" -- but, thanks to a distracted board operator, the actors are likely to get a bit of Duran Duran instead. The actor playing the murder victim, who -- this is not a spoiler -- isn't really dead, repeatedly makes his surprise Act II entrance much too early -- even before intermission. The willowy, upstaging-prone leading lady, cast as Florence, the murder victim's faithless fiancée, is knocked unconscious -- no member of the cast is spared abuse -- and she is replaced by a short, glamourless stage technician -- she looks like they found her in a local punk rock club -- who puts a flaming orange flapper dress over her jeans and sweatshirt, and, with script in hand, tries to keep up with the others. (The script is quickly knocked to the floor, scattering pages everywhere, guaranteeing that no line uttered by her will be from the scene currently playing.) When the original Florence recovers and returns, her replacement refuses to depart, leaving them to engage in on-stage warfare. Before the evening is over, one of the male members of the cast will be forced to take on the role of Florence. The authors of The Play That Goes Wrong, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields -- all of whom appear onstage -- and their director, Mark Bell, are only interested in what you might call the physics of comedy: How to set up a slapstick gag and execute it, achieving maximally destructive results. At times, you have to admire the execution: The actor Dave Hearn has such a knack for walking into pillars, he can create suspense by merely running about the stage. There's a bit involving a dead body and a broken stretcher that yields a remarkable piece of business. The supports for the set's second level are knocked away, leaving two actors (and several large set pieces) trapped on a platform that sags perilously. The finale, a blow-out disaster, pays tribute to a classic Buster Keaton gag. But did I laugh much? Not really. The pace is so relentless and the absence of anything but gags, gags, gags quickly wore out its welcome. I must add that the audience at the performance I attended often screamed in delight, getting into the action by loudly pointing out the location of a crucial, but misplaced, prop. I suppose there is an audience for this, but surely the title of Least Demanding Entertainment on Broadway is a less-than-coveted one. The Play That Goes Wrong may succeed as the number one show among non-English-speaking tourists, who may relish its rampant, and easy-to-grasp, silliness. Nigel Hook's set is meant to look like a chintzy, rattletrap depiction of an English country house, but it is really a cleverly conceived deathtrap, filled with opportunities for disaster. The lighting, by Ric Mountjoy, is basic without being amateur. The costumes, by Roberto Surace, are often amusing, pointing up the stereotypical nature of the characters in The Murder at Haversham Manor. Andrew Johnson's sound design provides some of the evening's most amusing moments, including Rob Falconer's overwrought original music and the wheezing of that offstage elevator. The events of the final moments of The Play That Goes Wrong leave the stage in a state of total destruction. There's a chandelier that finally collapses -- a tribute, perhaps, to another populist entertainment from the West End. It will be interesting to see whether audiences cotton to this production's oh-so-British sense of humor. Here's a test: If you don't find the first ten minutes amusing, settle in for a long night. If you find yourself laughing early on, you've come to the right place. -- David Barbour 
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