That Play that Goes Wrong
Apr. 27th, 2026 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aAnother play on Sunday, "The Play that Goes Wrong".
It was pretty much a less-funny, less-clever "Noises Off", so the fact that the Kauai Community Players chose to show it a year or so after "Noises Off" is a bit flabbergasting.
I had a suspicion of how things were going to go when the show started 10 minutes late because cast members were walking through the audience talking about their lost dog (interactive audience involvement!), and screwing around with things on set as if there were problems. It was a vaguely good setup, but a ten-minute late start to support it was definitely not funny.
Oh, and there was also the printed program, which was a program for the fake play within the play, "The Murder at Haversham Manor". Which meant that to see the real actors and director's note and such you had to click through a QR code to go to a web site and it displayed HORRIBLY on a phone. I fought with it for quite a bit to be able get the various pages to readable size, and Kimberly noted she saw someone a few rows ahead of us doing the same.
Beyond that, the play was 3 long hours (with a 15-minute intermission and more screwing around on stage) of people forgetting lines, losing props, having things repeatedly fall off of walls, and in one painfully long scene just before the intermission running through the same scene 4 or 5 times in a row because someone kept forgetting where they were.
There were genuinely funny bits in the play. One of the actors emoted all of his lines with ridiculous hand gestures and constantly played to the crowd, and he was hilarious. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Cecil, good job!) There were also clever interactions of lines and unfitting actions. There was also a clever bit where one actor kept running in early for a scene that didn't happen until the end of the play, which created some real tension because you knew it was coming.
The recurring theme of "the play must go on" was also clever and enjoyable as everyone tried to figure out how to keep going despite unconscious cast members, forgotten lines, and missing props.
The play within the play, a murder mystery, was also fun.
But oh, how they went for the same jokes again and again. Once was often funny. Ten times was often not. Just like that scene that they ran through four or five times, they ran a lot of their jokes into the ground. (I've told Kimberly repetition is funny for 25+ years, and I've now been proven wrong.)
And like I said: I knew Noises Off. Noises Off was a friend of mine. The Play that Goes Wrong was no Noises Off.
It was still worth the time spent, I think. Live theatre experiences are always special. There were genuine moments of laughter. But nonetheless, it was pretty dumb. Too low-brow for me, I later decided.
The Kauai Community Players have been hit or miss for us. The productions have all been great, but the source material choices are often just not what we'd like to see. Too depressing. Too self-destructive. Too glorifying of suicide (that was a terrific one all around). And this one: too dumb. But Shotgun Players was similarly hit-or-miss for us. It's just that their problem was half their plays were too self-indulgent. I think the Berkeley Playhouse may have been the only theatre where I had a much better ratio, but I love musicals.
So that's it for Kauai Players for the year.
I wonder if anything's showing Maui when we're going to be there in a few months.
It was pretty much a less-funny, less-clever "Noises Off", so the fact that the Kauai Community Players chose to show it a year or so after "Noises Off" is a bit flabbergasting.
I had a suspicion of how things were going to go when the show started 10 minutes late because cast members were walking through the audience talking about their lost dog (interactive audience involvement!), and screwing around with things on set as if there were problems. It was a vaguely good setup, but a ten-minute late start to support it was definitely not funny.
Oh, and there was also the printed program, which was a program for the fake play within the play, "The Murder at Haversham Manor". Which meant that to see the real actors and director's note and such you had to click through a QR code to go to a web site and it displayed HORRIBLY on a phone. I fought with it for quite a bit to be able get the various pages to readable size, and Kimberly noted she saw someone a few rows ahead of us doing the same.
Beyond that, the play was 3 long hours (with a 15-minute intermission and more screwing around on stage) of people forgetting lines, losing props, having things repeatedly fall off of walls, and in one painfully long scene just before the intermission running through the same scene 4 or 5 times in a row because someone kept forgetting where they were.
There were genuinely funny bits in the play. One of the actors emoted all of his lines with ridiculous hand gestures and constantly played to the crowd, and he was hilarious. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Cecil, good job!) There were also clever interactions of lines and unfitting actions. There was also a clever bit where one actor kept running in early for a scene that didn't happen until the end of the play, which created some real tension because you knew it was coming.
The recurring theme of "the play must go on" was also clever and enjoyable as everyone tried to figure out how to keep going despite unconscious cast members, forgotten lines, and missing props.
The play within the play, a murder mystery, was also fun.
But oh, how they went for the same jokes again and again. Once was often funny. Ten times was often not. Just like that scene that they ran through four or five times, they ran a lot of their jokes into the ground. (I've told Kimberly repetition is funny for 25+ years, and I've now been proven wrong.)
And like I said: I knew Noises Off. Noises Off was a friend of mine. The Play that Goes Wrong was no Noises Off.
It was still worth the time spent, I think. Live theatre experiences are always special. There were genuine moments of laughter. But nonetheless, it was pretty dumb. Too low-brow for me, I later decided.
The Kauai Community Players have been hit or miss for us. The productions have all been great, but the source material choices are often just not what we'd like to see. Too depressing. Too self-destructive. Too glorifying of suicide (that was a terrific one all around). And this one: too dumb. But Shotgun Players was similarly hit-or-miss for us. It's just that their problem was half their plays were too self-indulgent. I think the Berkeley Playhouse may have been the only theatre where I had a much better ratio, but I love musicals.
So that's it for Kauai Players for the year.
I wonder if anything's showing Maui when we're going to be there in a few months.