If you like your theatre farcical, physical, and flat-out funny, get on over to Pawtucket’s Burbage Theatre for 75 zany minutes, as the talented ensemble cast performs “The One-Act Play That Goes Wrong,” directed by Jeff Church, providing belly laughs galore.
Presented in a renovated, comfortable, proscenium style space, the play has you chuckling before it begins, as a supposed stage crew member engages an audience member in fixing a part of the set, a gag that runs through the play.
The “Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society” is staging a murder mystery. The actors are excited about their roles and attack them furiously.
The stage crew has created a perfect set, complete with a “working” fireplace, mantel, ornate walls, doors and furniture.
By the end of the play, the set is destroyed in true Buster Keaton fashion.
Anything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong, as the would-be thespians overact, miss cues, and destroy everything in sight.
Comic timing for these antics needs to be perfect, and it was, even at the preview performance I attended.
In true whodunnit fashion, everyone, including the butler, is a suspect. Of course, there is a detective. Even he is a suspect, not of overacting, but of murder and mayhem.
The ensemble includes Liam Roberts, Jack Clarke, James Lucy, Michael Youssef Greene, Manny Maldonado, Andrew Iacovelli, Allison Crews and Valerie Westgate. They all have their magical moments, but it is Westgate and Crews who stand out as two actresses fighting for the same role. (You have to see it to believe it.)
Hopeful, no one will break a leg during their dangerously hilarious pratfalls, but you may bust a gut laughing.
Silly?
You bet!
Just what we need during these depressing times.
No one left during brief talkback, which is part of the play.
“The One-Act Play That Goes Wrong” is at Burbage Theatre in Pawtucket through Sept. 22. Go online to
www.burbagetheatre.org for dates, times and reservations.
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