Who amongst us has by no means seen a foul present? We will most likely consider various issues which will go incorrect — someone forgets their line, an actor comes on too early or too late, props go lacking, set items break, a sound cue goes on the incorrect time. The Play that Goes Unsuitable, at the moment working at Aurora Theatre from by means of June 18, reveals us what occurs when the whole lot you may consider that would go incorrect does go incorrect. The result’s a chaotic, unforgiving and largely pleasant night of calamity.
The play opens on Chris (performed by Marcello Audino), a beleaguered inventive director whose horribly underfunded and understaffed theater firm is thought for mounting significantly disastrous productions. Chris is introducing the corporate’s newest manufacturing of a Nineteen Twenties type homicide thriller generally known as The Homicide at Haversham Manor. At this level, we now have already watched a few inept stagehands struggling (and in the end failing) to restore a damaged set piece. Chris’s desperation units the tone for a way the present will unfold.
Nearly instantly, the play-within-a-play is beset by practically each onstage situation one can think about — in need of the theater catching hearth — which the ill-prepared actors are compelled to try to deal with. Circumstances deteriorate because the present goes on, with downside after downside mounting with rising absurdity. Whereas I’d have loved a quick respite from the noisiness of the script, The Play that Goes Unsuitable boasts a dedicated and indefatigable forged who manages to maintain the laughs coming till the very finish.
Marcello Audino brings an plain appeal to each the roles of Chris and the Inspector who comes to analyze the fictional homicide. Skyler Brown is winningly sardonic as Trevor, the present’s board operator, who watches over the prepare wreck with snide enjoyment. Caleb Clark is hilarious as Cecil Haversham, who’s all too desirous to get folks to clap for him, it doesn’t matter what their applause is for. Arianna Hardaway hams it up as Florence Colleymoore, whereas Anthony Rodriguez is amusingly unhinged as her brother, Thomas Colleymoore.
Jeff McKerley, who performs the Haversham butler Perkins, engineers a few of the funniest scenes of the present. Chris Hecke hardly has any traces, and but manages to be one of the vital entertaining but brutalized corpses you’ve ever seen. Sweet McLellan is a scene-stealing comedic presence as a Stage Supervisor who’s compelled to go on for one of many injured actors, relishing each second of her character’s descent into narcissism.
This manufacturing merely wouldn’t work with out these actors, as with out their comedic timing and creativeness, the present dangers turning into extremely repetitive. When one thing goes incorrect each 5 minutes, it turns into simple to foretell when one thing else is about to go incorrect. The performances add some welcome selection and texture.
The forged can also be surprisingly athletic, particularly Caleb Clark, who gives a few of the present’s finest moments of bodily comedy (it’s subsequently unsurprising that he additionally serves as struggle captain). Sweet McLellan and Arianna Hardaway are equally spectacular in a later scene that requires each of them to channel their inside WWE wrestlers. Hardaway’s character takes lots of punishment all through, and he or she sells each bruise and contusion with unshakeable willpower.
A myriad of stage methods permits the set items to wreak carnage on the extent of Spider-Man: Flip Off the Darkish. Surroundings collapses on prime of actors in managed but nerve-racking descents, and doorways swing wildly into unsuspecting faces. One has to admire the technological prowess that goes into making a complete set collapse, on cue, proper in entrance of the viewers’s eyes. The entire thing is, for essentially the most half, seamless.
I have to tip my hat to scenic designers Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay for designing a set that’s each pleasing to take a look at and extremely useful. It can’t be simple to design a set that needs to be put again collectively each night time. Costume designers Dr. L. Nyrobi N. Moss and Alice Neff additionally convey their A-games, pulling collectively various eye-catching appears to be like that get combined and matched because the show-within-a-show devolves. Kristin Talley additionally has her work reduce out for her as props designer, fashioning props that undergo practically as a lot punishment because the actors utilizing them. The whole thing of the design scheme appears to be “make it look good till it doesn’t.”
Lighting designer Toni Sterling and sound designer Mikaela Fraser have barely much less worrying jobs, since their designs aren’t meant to face up to any bodily destruction, however they’ve simply as a lot enjoyable enjoying with the campier parts of the show-within-a-show. Fraser even will get to drag out some Duran Duran in one of many present’s extra tongue-in-cheek moments.
In fact, it’s all held collectively by director Heidi Cline McKerley, who maintains a cohesive inventive imaginative and prescient all through. Although we by no means truly get to see the characters work together when they don’t seem to be performing, there are clear and particular dynamics and arcs which are maintained all through.
If I’ve one grievance, it’s that the play does start to really feel overwhelmed by its personal sheer freneticism because it approaches the conclusion. At that time, although, it’s tempting to only throw your palms up and revel within the massacre. Apart from, you most likely weren’t invested in fixing Lord Haversham’s homicide to start with.
::
Luke Evans is an Atlanta-based author, critic and dramaturg. He covers theater for ArtsATL and Broadway World Atlanta and has labored with theaters such because the Alliance, Actor’s Specific, Out Entrance Theatre and Woodstock Arts. He’s a graduate of Oglethorpe College, the place he earned his bachelor’s diploma, and the College of Houston, the place he earned his grasp’s.
