The Play That Goes Wrong

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

When amateur performers stage a 1920s murder mystery, you get two shows for the price of one: the fictional whodunit itself and the spectacular collapse happening all around it. The Play That Goes Wrong delivers exactly what its title promises when the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society tackles The Murder at Haversham Manor at Kansas City Repertory Theatre's Spencer Theatre.

Created by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, this physical comedy thrives on the contrast between the earnest amateur troupe and the chaos unfolding onstage. An unstable set refuses to cooperate. Furniture becomes an adversary. Lines vanish from memory at precisely the wrong moment. And the murder victim—required to lie still through the investigation—keeps moving.

Yet the Cornley performers soldier on with unwavering determination, convinced they can rescue their production even as every element conspires against them. That commitment to finishing the show, no matter what, turns each new mishap into something more than slapstick: these characters genuinely care about their doomed mystery, and their refusal to surrender makes the comedy richer.

Stuart Carden directs the KCRep production, orchestrating the delicate balance between scripted theatrical disaster and genuine comic timing. The fictional murder plot unfolds even as the very real theatrical catastrophe takes center stage.

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