In 2012, Great Britain’s Mischief Theatre Company’s playwriting co-founders Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields created an imaginary world, the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, where classics of Brit-literature could become manic, accident-prone physical comedy in the hands of an amateurish theater troupe.
While their goofball take on J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan Goes Wrong’ is currently the toast of Broadway, the Mischief Theatre Company’s ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ – a play-within-a-play based on the Agatha Christie murder-mystery whodunnit trope – is running now through May 21 at Philadelphia’s Plays & Players Theatre with director Jen Childs.
And while local audiences are used to seeing two of its leads, Anthon Lawton and Scott Greer, usual mouthing the words of Pinter, Mamet, Shakespeare and Ibsen, for ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’, this pair of Barrymore Award-winning thespians hysterically avoid breaking bones as its highly physical comedy can be as dangerous as it looks on-stage.
“You have to make yourself safe, while maintaining the look of danger on this set – like I have to wear protective soles on my shoes to be extra grip-y,” says Greer.
“When I first read this, I knew that I wouldn’t fully understand its script until we got on stage and did it… got the spirit of it,” said Lawton of ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’. “The rehearsal process for this show, as opposed to dramas or other comedies that I’ve performed, comes down to physical problem solving, to how things work mechanically then, how do we make it look as if we’re doing it for the first time? Normally I might be thinking about more interior or emotional things, but here, it’s primarily physical.”
However, there is wiggle room for improvisation. During last week’s previews, Lawton – who shares an over 30-year friendship with Greer – had to suddenly wrestle control over certain stage props.
“We had to figure out certain configurations quickly, something funnier looking than anything we had already tried,” stated Lawton.
How does an actor control the uncontrollable?
“With lots of practice,” says Greer. “Jen (Childs, 1812’s producing artistic director, and the show’s director) wisely gave us a full week of rehearsal on set, before we started tech, because the set is the main character of this play…. And there were several moments where things went quickly out of control, fell from my hands and smashed spectacularly.”
When not performing original shows from the pen of Jen Childs, 1812 has captured the classic comedy of Steve Martin, Nichols & May, Woody Allen and more. What does it mean, then, to transpose words into pratfalls and head slams?
“Language definitely takes a back seat in this play to the arc of its action,” said Lawton. “There is not a lot of funny language in ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’, but rather funny ways to say very banal things, while tripping over each other and hopefully not getting hurt too badly.”
For information and tickets, visit 1812productions.org
