Usually theater performers want their production to go as smoothly as possible.
But this wasn’t the case for Cal High’s “The Play That Goes Wrong”, a chaotic comedy where literally everything intentionally goes wrong.
“The Play That Goes Wrong”, finished a three-night showing from April 24-26. The performance was a play within a play, where the characters attempted to perform “The Murder at Haversham Manor’’, a 1920’s murder mystery.
But during the performance, everything imaginable goes wrong with a flair of dramatic and surprising stunts, leading to disasters that befall the entire cast. This show’s special surprise factor kept the audience laughing while perched on the edge of their seats.
True to the clever style of this performance, the show began even before the curtain parted.
Walking into the theater, crew members greeted the audience with the concerned questions of “Have you seen a dog?” and “Where’s the dog?” These inquiries continued during intermission.
At the play’s end, there was a surprise appearance from Winston, who is Laura Woods’ dog, Chester. Woods is the drama teacher at Cal and supervised the production. This twist shocked the audience as many assumed there was a real dog on the loose.
The plot begins when the wealthy Charles Haversham (senior Jae Smith) is murdered, sparking an investigation.
Inspector Carter (senior Maverick Smith) is in charge of investigating the body and collecting alibis from the four suspects.
Two major suspects were Charlie’s fiance Florence Collymore (senior Nadia Rouillard) , and her brother Thomas Colleymore (senior Shea Daly).
The butler Perkins (senior Sophia Donahue) and Charles’ younger brother Cecil Haversham (senior Tyler Hurley) were also persons of interest.
After the murder is discovered, Thomas and Perkins attempted to carry Charles’ body out on a stretcher but he rolls and falls face first. When trying to lift the body again, the stretcher breaks and the supposedly dead Charles gets up and awkwardly exits.
In another incident, Florence is positioned behind a door which suddenly swings open, causing her to fall to the floor. She is replaced by an new offstage member, who later suffers the same fate, forcing lighting technician Trevor Foster (senior Noah Shallcross) to fill in.
Due to this change in roles, Cecil had to kiss Florence who was now played by Trevor. Although the two were hesitant, they kissed to the surprise and delight of the audience.
Then came the finale, where the actual killer was revealed.
Following a lot of wrong accusations of the murderer’s identity, the unexpected and comedic twist reveals that Inspector Carter was the killer.
When things couldn’t get much worse, the walls of the set fell down with the door frame fitting perfectly over the actors and revealing the crew working backstage.
Perfecting the finale stage drop had been a huge aspect of the show and ambitious feats like this required a lot of precision and hard work.
“The set is very, very intense and there is a lot going on,” Shallcross said.
The tech crew consists of about 20 students responsible for stage management, lighting, costume, set building, set design and more. They are the masterminds behind the timing of props and the set coming to life.
Woods said the play’s difficulty was unlike any production she’s put on during her 27 years of directing school plays.
“This is the hardest show I’ve ever directed,” Woods said.
With last year’s musical “Chicago” being a hit, the drama class had a big budget to contribute.
Additionally, many materials from previous productions were reused and altered to fit this play. Preparations took months, with the tech crew and costume design team starting in November.
Senior Ollie Stefani, head of costumes, had to find specific clothing to mimic the Broadway version of the show. Stefani achieved this effect using old costumes and thrifted clothing.
Additionally, Stefani said the way Cal’s actors interpret their characters can affect the style of a particular costume.
“The Play That Goes Wrong” left audiences thoroughly entertained from start to finish, showcasing a skilled stage crew and talented actors who adeptly portrayed characters with intentionally bad acting.
