THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG Previews- Page 2

[macnyc]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 11:12am

I'm so glad to hear that this is as funny as advertised. I saw the recent revival of Noises Off, and although I loved some of the performances, I found the play kind of tedious. I guess that's because of its structure, that you see the play from the audience perspective, then you hear much of the same material again, from "backstage." One of my favorite shows is One Man, Two Guvnors, although of course the great Richard Corden had a lot to do with that. I hope this play is along those lines. I have tickets for the first row in the mezzanine via the $25 ticket offer, and I'm looking forward to it!

 

 Edied to add: Yes, sorry, James Corden!

Updated On: 3/12/17 at 11:12 AM

[bct14972]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 11:45am

Also saw this last night, and can echo that it is one of the funniest things I've ever seen onstage. Much like "Oh, Hello" earlier this year, or even "Disaster", it doesn't ask anything from the audience other than laughter--and last night's crowd complied with that request exceedingly well. Here's hoping the critics do the same--we need more unbridled joy on Broadway!

 

And indeed--the crowd was well stocked with celebs last night! My partner got a pic with Victor Garber!

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 11:51am

macnyc said: "One of my favorite shows is One Man, Two Guvnors, although of course the great Richard Corden had a lot to do with that."

Did you mean James?

[10086sunset]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 12:36pm

Can anyone help with the running time?

[broadwayrocks2]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 1:49pm

Act 1 is 1 hour

intermission ranges 20 to 25 minutes in previews so far .

Act 2 is 39 minutes

[10086sunset]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 2:07pm

^ Thank you

[@z5]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 2:24pm

I have aisle seats in center orch second row. Hopefully it isn't too close 

[Jimmyb1969]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 9:56pm

I just got out. JJ Abrams was in the house tonight. Let me first say the audience loved it. I however had a terrible night. I was sandwiched between two extremely large people who were literally spilling over onto my seat. And it doesn't help the Lyceum Theatre is so old and one of the most uncomfortable seating wise. The large woman said "these seats are just so small..." and I'm thinking "no you're just extremely large and needed to be mindful when you book your seat...an aisle or a box seat next time." No offense but it's just not fair to the people you're sitting next to. Period. Why am I being punished? I thought I was going to have a panic attack when they both started coughing on me. Soooo this might have dampened my experience BUT I came away thinking I was just yelled at for 2 hours. They just yell and yell and yell some more. Net-net it's one big sight gag after another and a lot of yelling. Perfect for the Jersey crowd in the house...they ate it up! And a few of the cast were very good and found some nuance around the "schtick." This show is probably very cheap to produce so it should run awhile just on TKTS alone. But it's definitely no Noises Off or 39 Steps...not even close. It might have been more enjoyable to me if it was immersive. And honestly maybe it was just the large people that were taking up half my seat? Oh well. 

 

[n2nbaby]

Posted: 3/10/17 at 10:21pm

Holy crap with thmy fat shaming. I get it can be uncomfortable but good lord. "No, you're just extremely large." Judgementsl jerk. I've always had the mind set that since most seats on Broadway are small (whether it be how big the actual seat is or the leg room), you just kind of have to deal with it. It happens sometime and isn't worth being an @$$hole over.

[Comden Green]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 8:53am

n2nbaby said: "Holy crap with thmy fat shaming. I get it can be uncomfortable but good lord. "No, you're just extremely large." Judgementsl jerk. I've always had the mind set that since most seats on Broadway are small (whether it be how big the actual seat is or the leg room), you just kind of have to deal with it. It happens sometime and isn't worth being an @$$hole over.

 

"

Gotta stand up for jimmy here.  He was not being an asshole.  Or "fat shaming ". Shame on you n2nbaby.  Have you no empathy?    Theatre goer pays for a seat but doesn't get the seat through no fault of his own.  He's not the problem here.  Small seats or not- he deserves the seat he paid for.  

[Jimmyb1969]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 9:00am

Obviously n2nbaby you've never paid $150.00 or more for a seat...but when you do and someone is taking up half of it, they smell and they're coughing on you then you'll understand. Being self aware is a hard thing for people to grasp but once you do I promise you'll behave differently. Instead of saying the seats are too small maybe an "I'm sorry about this...can I buy you a drink and we can have a good laugh over this...or let me talk to an usher and see what I can do..." Maybe I wouldn't have been so upset. They made everyone around them uncomfortable and frankly I couldn't breathe. It's not fat shaming, I could care less...just be mindful of those around you. Take some time to absorb that. I was stuck until intermission then I moved... but I'm not sure why I had the be the one to take action when they were literally taking up half my seat. Imagine being in the middle of the row and you have no armrest because you're being flanked on both sides by people whose bodies are literally spilling over onto your seat. #uncomfortable. #unfair #selfaware #mindfulofothers #booktherightseatnexttime #spelling #grammar

 

 

Updated On: 3/11/17 at 09:00 AM

[Jimmyb1969]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 9:05am

Thanks for the support Comden Green! They ruined my night...I'm going to contact the box office and try and give this show another go.

[Valentina3]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 11:30am

Got any discount codes for this? Also, seat recommendations?

 

Never mind - got front center mezz tickets using Telechargeoffers.com discount. :)

Updated On: 3/11/17 at 11:30 AM

[99pandas]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 12:32pm

Tickets are on sale through Sept 3 right now. Is there a good chance this will still be around by Thanksgiving? 

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 12:37pm

Is anyone sat in the balcony for this? Apologies if it's been mentioned, but I'm trying not to spoil the show for myself by reading too much here. Wondering if it's better to just splurge for better seats…

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 1:00pm

I saw it in London last year and just really laughed my head off. I am curious if they do "something" before the show starts here like they did in London. 

[broadwayrocks2]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 1:44pm

^ They do the same pre show stuff as London , very funny !! ^

 

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 3:43pm

Make sure you talk back to them, so much fun if you interact.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 3/11/17 at 11:27pm

Oh, how badly I wanted to love this one. I've always had an affection for British farce, and Noises Off (from which The Play That Goes Wrong takes obvious inspiration) is one of my favorite plays ever. Unfortunately, this is a shrill evening of gags that have no buildup and thus, no real payoff. The genius of Noises Off (and what makes most farce work in general) is that it starts slow; we are introduced to the "plot" and characters, along with the neuroses of the actors playing them, early on on in a fair bit of exposition. While this means the laughs are not immediate, they are richer later on because groundwork has been done to make the jokes and bits that much funnier. Here, the show is devoid of that setup and things are obviously going poorly before the show proper begins, so the gags have nowhere to build to and are repeated endlessly. Sure, it's funny to see someone get hit in the head with a door, but it's funnier if it doesn't happen right off the bat. It's also increasingly less funny when it happens 20 times over the course of the evening. The jokes in the actual text are not quite as repetitive, but you can see them coming from a mile away.  

In a general sense, it's also unclear what the focus of the show really is here. We are never introduced to the real personality of the actors as in Noises Off (though there are hints here and there), so nothing is happening on that secondary level. However, the "play" we're watching is borderline incomprehensible. I understand that the play really isn't the thing here, but if the audience can't understand what is "supposed" to be happening, then the mistakes aren't as clear and don't pack the same comic punch. 

The writing is not very inspired, but the direction is certainly to blame here as well. Farce is challenging because, with so much happening as the action builds, everything on stage has to be precise so that the audience can follow from moment to moment. At most points in The Play That Goes Wrong, it just feels like a free-for-all- so much is going on that it feels like confusing chaos. And as just a technical matter, the actors constantly keep talking when the audience laughs at a gag, which makes everything going on even muddier. 

The actors here are all certainly working their tails off and deserve credit for being so willing to throw their bodies across the stage, but everyone starts at such a fever pitch that they very quickly become grating. There were, however, a few fun moments from Nancy Zamit and Henry Lewis. The set is more or less what you'd expect, but it's certainly well-constructed. 

Much of the audience (at least in the balcony, where the view is incidentally fine) was losing their mind, so I'm clearly in the minority here. But the entire time I wished I were sitting in the Lyceum for a return engagement of Oh, Hello so I could actually be laughing. 

Posted: 3/12/17 at 1:00pm

I saw this last night too and have to say it's one of the most inane things I've sat through. Honestly, save your money and time and just watch a three stooges rerun. 

 

This show is tired and insulting to true stagecraft that (should) exist on Broadway today. At best, this should be in a theater off Broadway for tourists. 

Updated On: 3/12/17 at 01:00 PM

[JustAnotherNewYorker]

Posted: 3/12/17 at 2:13pm

I saw it last night. This was the among the show I was most looking forward to seeing this season. Really wanted to like it, and was expecting to enjoy it much more than I did Present Laughter, which I saw Friday. I didn't.

Perhaps because I've seen some clips [of the best parts] from Royal Variety, or perhaps because my seats were not the best, I felt it did not live up to my expectations. My daughter, however, thought it was the funniest thing she's ever seen, on or off Broadway (alas, I've apparently been remiss in my parental obligations and  may need to introduce her to the Three Stooges). I may see it again if it comes on TDF, hopefully in a better and more comfortable seat.

Perhaps I'm just too old to appreciate pratfalls without any emotional attachment to the characters. I'm hopeful that Groundhog Day will give me the humor and depth I desire (I guess I trust Tim Minchin).

 

When did I become my father? I've become and old fuddy duddy. I think this would benefit somewhat from the Rocky Horror treatment...

Updated On: 3/12/17 at 02:13 PM

[bk]

Posted: 3/12/17 at 5:07pm

Back in 1978 I wrote a musical called Stages, about a theatre department - loosely based on my experiences.  It was a nice little hit in LA.  The final twenty minutes of act one was exactly what this show is:  The actors are putting on a Victorian murder mystery and everything that can go wrong does go wrong.  It was the reason we were a hit - the laughs were so huge we all thought the roof of the theater would cave in nightly, and no one had done anything like that before.  Then along came Noises Off years later and I thought, oh, they've stretched it out that idea to a full length play, but I thought they did it very well and liked that show a lot.  I've seen that long clip on the Royal Variety and here is why I know this show will not work for me and why that long clip did not work for me, and it's been hinted at in this thread:  Our end of act show disaster worked so well because prior to it we let the audience see how it was supposed to work correctly - in other words we had a good "performance" run, and then the opening night performance run where everything goes haywire, including several bits that were/are identical to what I saw on the Royal Variety.  So the audience had context - they'd seen it right, and so every "wrong" gag landed just as it should have - our audience had also spent the prior part of act one learning about the characters who will be performing this, just as that happens in Noises Off.   Here we have no set-up, just the wrong, and for me, after ten minutes of that, you have nothing at all.

But, that said, from its arch, trendy title to the way theatre has devolved, I think it will be a big hit.

Updated On: 3/14/17 at 05:07 PM

[BakerWilliams]

Posted: 3/12/17 at 6:24pm

Why couldn't they produce Tom Stoppard's brilliant The Real Inspector Hound rather than this wet noodle.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 3/12/17 at 6:29pm

Because there seem to be a great deal of people that DO love this? 

 

Different strokes.

[ggersten]

Posted: 3/12/17 at 8:24pm

The criticisms are all fair and accurate.  But I think that those of us who enjoy the show look past those because we were too busy laughing.  There are "characters" - the director struggling to maintain the play continuing, the neophyte who stops to soak up applause, the overworked stagehand/understudy.  None of those characters are original or unexpected.  When I saw the show early in its West End run, it just was very well done.  

Also, "The Murder at Haversham Manor" is not a professional theatre production ala Nothing On! in Noises Off.  Rather, the play is being presented by an Am-Dram society i.e. a small community theater with pretensions.  Hence to me, the humor is the conflict between the pretensions and the production.  As I recall, the amount of things that go wrong do gradually escalate.  Some of the humour is "shock" humor - just something incredibly wrong happening quickly and out of the blue.  Some physical jokes are set up - but many are not.  .  

But I can see how some will feel the bits get tedious, repetitive and go on too long - because that is how I felt about The Comedy about a Bank Robbery also from Mischief Theatre.