Had the delightful chance last night to catch The Play That Goes Wrong on Broadway.  I haven’t laughed so hard in a very long time.  One of my favorite plays is Michael Frayn’s Noises Off (which I have seen several times).   Believe it or not, this is an even broader version of the same concept.  Essentially an amateur drama society is putting on a performance and nearly everything possible goes wrong.

(In my younger days I was in a performance of a British farce Run For Your Wife.  As my character stormed on stage I point to another character on stage only to find the doorknob had come off in my hand as I brought it forward.  I ad-libbed “This house is falling apart at the seams” – which was appropriate and sneaked it off stage to a stagehand who fixed it in the act break.  Now multiply that by a million times.)

The only TONY nod it received was for the scenery, which certainly deserved a nomination.  It is as much a character as any performing on stage – who are all excellent and limber and blessed with excellent timing.  It is every amateur theatrical disaster in one performance.  This is not quite as profound as a Long Days Journey Into Night, but I would estimate it has about two million more laughs.  Don’t miss it.  Just for fun.

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