The Play That Goes Wrong

The Play That Goes Wrong at Spencer Theatre At Kansas City Repertory Theatre

Amateur theater can go spectacularly sideways when the scenery has other plans.

The Play That Goes Wrong at the Spencer Theatre brings the disaster-prone Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society to Kansas City. This troupe is determined to perform their 1920s murder mystery The Murder at Haversham Manor, but every element conspires against them. The set refuses to cooperate. Furniture betrays its handlers. Lines vanish from memory at the worst possible moments. Even the corpse won't stay convincingly dead.

What makes this physical comedy work is watching committed performers battle mounting chaos. Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, the production layers calamity upon calamity as the amateur actors refuse to quit. Their dogged professionalism in the face of collapsing scenery and snowballing mistakes becomes its own kind of heroism.

The structure delivers twin pleasures: you get to follow the murder-mystery plot and watch it disintegrate in real time. Who killed Charles Haversham? Will the mantel stay attached to the wall? Can anyone remember their cues? Stuart Carden directs Kansas City Repertory Theatre's production, guiding the chaos as scripted mishaps pile up and the Cornley players soldier on.

The joy is in the wreckage—carefully crafted theatrical wreckage, but wreckage nonetheless. Grab tickets to see ambition collide with incompetence at the Spencer Theatre.