Review: Seattle Rep’s “The Play That Goes Wrong” Gets It Right

Review: The Play That Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields & Jonathan Sayer. Produced by Seattle Rep and Portland Center Stage. Directed by Dámaso Rodríguez. Scenic Design by Tom Buderwitz, Costume Design by Melanie Taylor Burgess. Lighting Design by Connie Yun. Sound Design and Music Composition by Rodolfo Ortega. Movement & Fight Choreography by Brian Danner. With Cassi Q. Kohl, Chip Sherman, Darius Pierce, Ian Bond, Setareki, Darragh Kennan, Chris Murray, Ashley Song. At Seattle Rep from August 28th through September 28, 2025.

Tickets at https://www.seattlerep.org/plays/202526-season/the-play-that-goes-wrong

Who doesn’t love a good disaster?

The Poseidon Adventure!

Airport 75!!!

Both Trump Administrations!!!!

OK…we love the first two and as for that third thing….yeesh. As for theatrical disasters, there are many examples of unintentional ones: that Spiderman Pump Up The Jam from a few years back comes to mind as the greatest example (but also Beanie Feldstein in Funny Girl was kinda dumb, too…)

Nearly 20 years ago, some clever British theater students formed a new theater company…Mischief Theatre was formed in 2008 by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields and they and other young theater friends began devising some new kinds of theater…intentionally “bad” theater. Or, maybe not so much bad as disastrous…live productions where anything and everything can go wrong from sets falling apart to props disappearing to actors forgetting lines or even getting knocked unconscious. All these things happen in the best and most professional of theater productions but what if they ALL happened consecutively over the course of one very bad night of live theater?

The result was THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG which appeared in 2012 and swiftly became a hit in London before expanding to hugely successful productions around the world. Since then, they’ve produced further “…Goes Wrong” shows both for the theater and for British television with the primary plots of these projects being that the poor Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, a small local community theater always has problems when they produce their amateur performances that ALWAYS go wrong.

Yet, the comedy payoffs for audiences watching this mayhem are mostly always right. The Mischief Theatre’s formula is a winning one…non-stop hilarity featuring pratfalls, carefully choreographed stunts and bodywork, technical effects and clever set and prop designs along with very broad performances from the actors. Now, none of this is particularly NEW…anyone who has been “around the block” a year or two or fifty grew up watching The Carol Burnett Show or even The Benny Hill Show in the UK (and syndicated here) which frequenty featured sketches where things would go tragically wrong. The Carol Burnett Show did several of these over the years, frequently featuring Harvey Korman as a hammy stage actor forced to deal with collapsing sets or scene partners who weren’t up to snuff. People enjoy orchestrated chaos!

And, that’s the chief (if not only) charm of Seattle Rep’s current production of “The Play That Goes Wrong”. It’s a cute premise and they have the money and talent to make it all work…meaning they can hire very talented people to appear on stage and they have the backstage talent (and budget) to build sets and props that can fall apart night after night.

The plot is pretty simple: The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society is producing a rather corny old whodunnit called The Murder at Haversham Manor, which is clearly a rather inferior ripoff of an Agatha Christie mystery. Set in the 1920s, the play within a play features a victim, several suspects, a butler, star crossed lovers, a detective and plenty of red herrings and double crosses. There are six actors playing the six actors who play the onstage characters plus there’s also a stage manager and light/sound board operator who get pulled into the action as well.

I’m not going into detail about the plot of either play…it’s not really important to the enjoyment of the show. The Murder at Haversham Manor has a ridiculous plot and “The Play That Goes Wrong” doesn’t really have a plot other than watching one joke after another. Which is the show’s greatest strength but also at times a weakness…the comedy is just relentless, with one gag after another which is “funny” but some gags aren’t as good as others and so the flow of the comedy can be a bit bumpy at times. And, there’s really never a moment to get your breath…which would, for many, be desirable in a comedy but it can also be a bit wearying after awhile. Not to mention that since EVERYTHING goes wrong, you start to anticipate those errors…if something involves any kind of prop, you immediately know that either the prop will not be where it should be, or, be the WRONG prop, or, not function correctly. It’s not an intellectual kind of comedy at all…which is fine. The slapstick of “The Play That Goes Wrong” along with the very funny performances make it worth your while to check out.

It’s a handsome show with a fine set design by Tom Buderwitz and handsome theatrical costuming by Melanie Taylor Burgess. Brian Danner does a terrific job choreographing this production’s many pratfalls, stunts and fights.

The cast is quite good and it’s rather a treat to see so many new faces in this cast…this production of The Play That Goes Wrong from the Seattle Rep is a co-production with Portland Center Stage (which opens there in January 2026) so they did casting in Seattle and Portland with the result we’re introduced to Darius Pierce as Chris/the Inspector and Chris Murray as Max/Cecil and Ashley Song as Sandra/Florence and they’re all just terrific.

We also have more familiar local Seattle faces on hand including Ian Bond as Jonathan/Charles, Darragh Kennan as the doddering butler, Cassi Q. Kohl and Chip Sherman as the poor behind the scenes folks pulled into the action and newcomer Setareki as Robert/Thomas and they’re all great, too. This is a super physical show with some outstanding stunts and all these actors are working HARD up there…to the point that you kind of worry about them at times.We’ll assume they have good insurance.

So, I obviously am going to give this a thumb’s up. It was a lot of fun, albeit a bit exhausting at times. The show IS funny, though it could be better paced in my opinion…the similar sketches on Carol Burnett really worked because they were only 8 to 10 minutes long. (This play is also two acts; does it really NEED to be two acts? Other than to sell drinks at intermission?)

And, while I’m ranting, frankly, the female characters are a bit short changed; they don’t get enough to do and the male to female ratio of the cast is a bit off putting; it’s 2 women to 6 men. Considering that the play within the play is supposed to be an Agatha Christie type whodunnit, it’s missing an older female character…either a dowager type or a fussy old maid. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy seeing dowagers doing pratfalls? Or, am I the only misanthrope who thinks that’s hilarious?