Over the past two weeks, CLC Theatre presented performances of The Play That Goes Wrong, a play within a play. 

The Play That Goes Wrong ran at CLC Nov. 8-10 and 15-16 in the CLC Studio Theatre. This play was directed by Dylan S. Roberts.

Each actor not only played a character, but also a character playing a character. All of their roles have alternative first names aside from who they actually are.

The play begins with an announcement from the Company Director (Evan Oslund). The audience is informed of the many failures that Cornley Drama Society has had. One of them includes James and the Peach because of the lack of funding. Oslund’s comedic timing was spectacular and set the show off in the right direction.

The play takes place at Haversham Manor on the evening of Charles Haversham (Drake Runyon) and Florence Colleymoore’s (Danielle Kedzie Gatta) engagement party in the winter of 1992.

Charles Haversham (Drake Runyon) is the murder victim and the center of the investigation. Though he has no speaking lines in the first act, he frequently returns to the stage with purposefully wrong entrances. Runyon could make the crowd laugh with facial expressions alone. His presence is loud enough. 

Thomas Colleymoore (Lucas Suchor) is the brother of Florence Collemoore. Through the many twists and turns in this play, Suchor’s character is never in the hot seat until the very end. Suchor has an almost excessive number of spit takes in this show. He seems to be the only character who can be semi-professional. Suchor also has some beautiful sword-fighting skills. 

Cecil Haversham (Luke Bruinius), however, lacks the beauty in his sword-fighting skills and tries to imitate Suchor’s elegance with a sword. Bruinius plays not only Cecil but also Arthur the Gardener. 

Arthur does not make his appearance until Act II, after another Haversham death. One of Bruinius’ most memorable moments of the play was his ability to imitate a dog on a leash that was not there. 

Owen Leavitt plays Perkins, the butler. With smudged notes on his hand and the faked inability to pronounce many words correctly, Leavitt plays a great Perkins.

Florence Colleymoore credited to Danielle Kedzie Gatta should truthfully be credited to two other actors as well. After an intentional knockout on stage, Gatta was ‘unable’ to continue performing, and the company stage manager (Kate Hampton) must take over. 

Hampton does a superb job playing the backstage-forced-onstage role. Her faked lack of line memorization is heightened when she drops her script. That is until Hampton was also rendered unconscious.

Without a choice, the company lighting and sound operator (Rillo Rojas) must step in. This is a very short-lived role, and Rojas has more speaking lines as the lights and sound operator, accidentally playing Taylor Swift in the middle of the performance. 

The set was well designed and built, able to collapse and also stand tall. Lights and sound had a drastic effect on the overall performance, highlighting and sometimes creating the comedic timing.

The play had many errors, all of them intended and hilarious.