The Play That Goes Wrong (NYC) NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Forgoing pesky details like plot and character development, the two-act evening of visual gags - many worthy of a Mack Sennett silent - pieced together by bits of verbal silliness is one of those endeavors that charges onto the stage as a force of choreographed chaos...This reviewer found his enjoyment coming primarily from an appreciation of the comedic skills on display, rather than from the piece itself."
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“In this Henry Lewis-Jonathan Sayer-Henry Shields comedy where everything that can go wrong absolutely does, the result is one of the most laugh-filled works that has ever jollied a stage...The troupe of actors are not simply good; they’re gallant to the point where they should be getting hazard pay...Special mention goes to Johnson’s original sound design and to Falconer’s original music, which is everything the music to a thriller.”
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“The rickety amateur-theatrical scenery is even more rickety than before; shoehorned onto a considerably smaller stage...The cast is new...The present troupe is more than satisfactory...'The Play That Goes Wrong’ still proceeds like a well-oiled clock that doesn’t actually keep time. But it is not quite up to speed...This will come, sure; but they are not quite there, yet...Even so, the comedic fever pitch as ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ remains rambunctiously boisterous.”
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"If you're looking for a cure from the winter blues, a way to forget your personal troubles or just enjoy laughing until you're blue in the face for two hours, there can be little argument that 'The Play that Goes Wrong' has all the right stuff."
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"If it is cliché to say that a show has non-stop laughs, then this show is cliché in the extreme. If it is pat to say that this play lives up to its title, rarely have a talented crew of actors and technicians so seamlessly joined forces to make a ridiculously wrong piece of theater feel so very right...Director Matt DiCarlo, either a genius or a fool, pulls it all together with the nerves of a demolition expert handling a bomb with a dozen different triggers."
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"It’s official. We can laugh again. Time to go see The Play That Goes Wrong. Director Matt DiCarlo has let the cast loose on this wonderful farce with but one instruction: go for it. No laugh remains un-milked; no scene un-stolen; no wink un-winked. Not even the furniture is safe. At the zoo they tell you not to feed the animals, but for the actors of The Cornley University Drama Society, it is just the opposite. A steady diet of laughter and applause facilitates the breeding program. Thus the gags have gags, and double takes have given birth to triplets."
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"Absolutely everything is right about the transfer...While 'non-stop laughs' has become something of a hackneyed soundbite, here it’s a 100% accurate appraisal of this hysterically-funny British farce of the highest order; literally not a minute goes by in which the audience – myself included – isn’t howling, from before the show officially begins until the final bows."
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“Everything that was funny during its nearly two-year run in the Lyceum Theatre is just as funny...The difference is a subtle pickup in how the audience relates to the characters. For me it became personal, akin to cheering-on a perpetually losing team. But a ton more fun...The new cast is American, and...are as adept at the comedic turns of phrase and physical antics as were their forebears...It remains a master class in comic invention and execution."
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