Analysis of The Play that Goes Wrong: Laughing at Our Problems

            A play within a play may seem to be a highly meta, intellectual thing, perhaps incompatible with comedy. Yet The Play that Goes Wrong by the Mischief Theatre Company is, without hyperbole, one of the funniest shows ever. Why precisely is it so funny? Is it simply because people enjoy watching others suffer? Is it because we are so used to perfectly polished productions that the thought of one going horribly wrong is an amusing subversion of expectations? Or is it because of empathy, and if so, how? In my mind, it is a combination of all three. As someone from the theatre community, I can say quite certainly that TPtGW is far more meaningful for theatre people then non-theatre people. And in this lecture, I will endeavor to explain why.

            To begin, let us summarize TPtGW. We begin before the play even has, with a stage manager, light board operator, and deck hands running around trying to get everything ready. At some point the fireplace mantle may fall off the wall, and if you are very lucky the stage manager may choose you, intrepid audience member, to come up on stage and hold the thing to the wall. It will not be until the “director” comes onstage to introduce the show that you may return to your seat; the mantle falling to the deck with a thump. Immediately you will see that the “esteemed” Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society (or Cornley University in the American version) is presenting a “Clue”-esque 1920s murder mystery called The Murder at Haversham Manor. They are glad to have more budget then their previous productions of James and the Peach, The Lion and the Wardrobe, and Cat (singular).

            The play begins, and it begins to go wrong. Without spoiling the actual plot of the murder mystery (for there is an actual plot in here) let me say that everything that can go wrong with this play does. To briefly hit the high points: characters forget lines, sets break, the board op is incompetent and misses cues, characters get knocked out and are stuffed in grandfather clocks, the stage manager takes over a roll and enjoys it so much she gets into a WWE fight with the real actor when they regain consciousness and tries to take their role back, actors are too absorbed in the audience and spend their time pandering instead of acting, props are misplaced (such as when whiskey is replaced with paint thinner, and the actors must drink it and pretend with all their might that it is not melting their face off; pro tip: the front row will be a spit take splash zone). In the end the mystery is solved, and the play concludes with all the walls falling in around the cast in a very Buster Keaton Steamboat Bill, Jr. moment. And the entire time you will be suffocating on your laughter.

            I attended the very first showing of their American tour in 2018, which began at the Benedum Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA. My attendance proved to be an interesting case study; I went with my mother (this was a birthday gift from her) and my sister (who goes to school at Pitt). My mother, being versed in literature and the arts, though not as much as me, fell in the middle of the “theatre scale” that was comprised of myself (an at-the-time junior BA theatre major) and my sister (a sophomore pre-law major). She knows as little about theatre as I do about law, and yet she adored the show; we all did. Yet, we found it funny for very different reasons.

            “If I got a paper cut, that’s a tragedy. If you fell down an open manhole and died, that's comedy.” This quote by Woody Allen clearly states the comedic properties of schadenfreude, which is defined as “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune”. Who among us has not viewed compilations of people running into signposts or whiffing a back flip at high school graduation? This is the concept of schadenfreude in action. There are a few theories as to why we find sudden mishaps funny. Firstly, it is a shock; it is an event that occurs quickly, randomly, and usually with a sudden visual or audio que. You are walking down the street when “HWAM!” a person who was texting runs face first into a stop sign with a loud gong-like sound. Everyone freezes; is the person okay? The poor unfortunate swears cathartically, rubs their forehead, and noticing the crowd laughs while blushing, maybe saying “I planned that” and giving a bow before they run off in a more attentive manner. We all burst out laughing. The monotony of our day was interrupted by a very random occurrence. Our brain is shocked, and for a moment does not know how to process what just happened. The combination of mental surprise and the knowledge that what occurred did not happen to you but someone else (who is, of course, okay; that is integral for the magic) makes our brains recalibrate with humor. Everything is fine, and we expend the extra emotional energy generated by this event in a cathartic chuckle. And the people who fall into these circumstances seek to rectify their embracement by “laughing it off”.

We are so used to laughing at non-threatening injuries that when it occurs to us, we propagate the scenario. If you trip on the sidewalk and do not laugh people will run up to help, but if you chuckle, they will too. You have given them permission to not worry. Their brains are thrown into a ready state because they have been shocked out of what they were doing previously, and that energy has to go somewhere. Whether they use that energy in aiding you or laughing will depend on the social cues that you (as the victim) give off.

Humans mimic each other (and exploring why is an entirely other essay) but for the sake of argument let us acknowledge this fact, for it gives context as to why people will find misfortunes funny (again, as long as the victim does too). Even while writing this essay, during a zoom call with friends, a dog bark frightened me. And after checking that I was not about to be eaten by a rouge wolf, I laughed at my reaction, which caused the other zoom attendees to do so as well. Human social nature in action.

            Let me hasten to say that laughter is not the only social que that the victim is okay and that it is acceptable to laugh at (or with) them. A notable moment in TPtGW is when a character is holding set pieces up to the wall because they keep falling off. He has no free hands (or feet; he is plastered against the wall) but has to answer the phone. Another character places the phone in the crook of his neck and the line that he has to say is “[This is] It is inconvenient, yes!” (32). Clever writing showcases his line because it is in fact tragically true; he very much in an inconvenient spot, being human blue-tack. Towards the end of the play that same character is up on the second floor of the set, which is collapsing. He is hanging off it, Indiana Jones style, when the phone rings again. Once more the phone is tortuously given to him, and while he is dangling in the air he says “Thank you for calling again… Yes, this is a much more convenient time, thank you…” (54). I am highlighting this section to show that “acting normal” is another social que to laugh at an unfortunate scenario. This character is not giggling over hanging off a balcony; he is acting completely calm. Any normal person would not, but his actions are such a juxtaposition of what a person should do that it is funny. Our brains are given permission by the “victim’s” actions to not worry and instead laugh at the absurdity of it all.

            So this explains why my law school sister found TPtGW hilarious, but I did mention that I found it funny for different reasons. I, and other people from the theatre community, find a profound empathy in the play. Talk to any theatre person at length and the conversation will at some point meander to notable screw ups during productions. Mistakes during a show are so common that we accept their occurrence. “The light board went out for a few seconds, causing a black out on stage? Welp, that is opening night for you! At least the actors improv-ed it well.” I have had to endure characters forgetting props and having to ad-lib around the issue, characters falling and quite literally not being able to get up (the actress in question was wearing a wardrobe and, having fallen, was experiencing the same issues a turtle does when on its back), smoke machines breaking which allowed the audience to see actors furtively army crawl their way off stage in the now absent smoke screen, and one particularly harrowing moment when a balloon filled with pennies (so it would not float into the rigging) floated into the rigging above the heads of ballerinas while I worried over it popping due to the heat of the lights and dropping hot bits of metal onto these visiting professional dancers.

I can only think of one production I have ever been a part of that did not have a single mistake occur during the performances, and ironically everything that could go wrong backstage did. Some fatalistic deck hands had uttered the cursed name “Macbeth” during rehearsal, and then the entire cast and crew were inflicted with the most mind-numbing cases of stomach flu known to man… during our show days. Actors would deliver their lines, sing their songs, dance their dances, and then flee into the wings to vomit into waiting buckets. Then they would go back on stage. This occurred for a week straight. And we were performing Phantom of the Opera. But as I said, no one in the audience had any idea, because the actual production went flawlessly (none of the above hiccups occurred, marring the audience’s experience).

So take my word for it; no play is ever safe from troubles and tribulations. Whether they be the standard mishaps (which are so standard that if a show is not going wrong people start to wait anxiously for the inevitable lightning to smite them) or the horrifically unique issues (such as the curse of The Scottish Play). This is why TPtGW is hilarious for theatre people… we have lived this.

Flubbed lines, props being misplaced, incorrect cues, sets breaking, these have all occurred in every production I have ever seen. Of course, usually not all at once, and not at this magnitude, but that is the beauty of TPtGW. All the theatre people in the audience have lived the play (minimally, I hope). We understand what it is like to experience what these characters do onstage, and the way they have to problem solve on the spot is something that we also have done! It is empathy. Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”. Anyone in the theatre community empathetically understands the panic that is going through the minds of these actors, and now may be a good moment to mention that when looking at the script for TPtGW the cast is not listed as the cast of the play, The Murder at Haversham Manor. They are listed as the actors playing that cast. The play even goes so far as to print a fake program, listing the actors that the real actors are playing as the cast. Then you will see the real program, that does not say “Jamie Ann Romer” (real actress) as Florence (character), but Jamie Ann Romer as Sandra as Florence. TPtGW is not about a murder mystery, it is about a group of actors from a small community (or collegiate) theatre society putting on a play.

            Audience members who are not versed in theatre will see a murder mystery play that is funny because that characters have to put up with screw ups, and their calm demeanor in their panicked states is socially funny. Audience members who are versed in theatre will see a group of fellow thespians trying desperately to make their production work amidst a baffling number of unlucky happenings that are worthy of a gypsy curse (or maybe they invoked the wrath of The Scottish Play). We find it funny because we all understand what it is like to be there and deal with it. We can see the panic in the eyes of the actors as they desperately try to not break character and “do the damn play”. We get it, we have all been there. The Play that Goes Wrong is masterfully crafted because, no matter who is watching it, they will find it funny. Whether through social comedic theory or empathetic commiseration, we can all connect and understand this play.

Works Cited

Sayer, Jonathan (playwright UK). Play That Goes Wrong - 3rd Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2015.