As much as I love a good comedy at the theatre it can be the hardest genre to keep exciting and new especially if it’s a play or musical I’ve seen repeatedly. It stands to reason most of us can only laugh at the same joke a few times and then it starts to become more tedious. This is how I was beginning to feel with The Play That Goes Wrong. Particularly the last time I saw it things just didn’t land right with it being in a theatre-in-the-round setup (a lot of the jokes require a wall for the payoff so theatre-in-the-round doesn’t really work.) Anyway, I was a little nervous when my entire family wanted to see the new production of The Play That Goes Wrong over at The Ruth but I went with them, and we all had a great time.

What I really appreciate most about this production at The Ruth is the hard work on the part of the actors to keep things fresh and new. Director Barta Heiner has clearly given her actors room to improvise and add their own dialogue to the chaos. Samuel Wright who played Chris/Inspector Carter is particularly gifted at this with the highlight of the night being an improvised line when an audience member shouted out and he replied “This isn’t Dora the Explorer. We aren’t asking for help from the audience.” I died laughing when he did that. There was another terrific moment of ad-libbing when Charles and Thomas are sword fighting and they started quoting Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. At one point one of them says ‘I have the high ground.’ I have never heard that in this play before and it was very funny.

This spirit of improvisation is such a smart approach for this material because I would bet I am not the only person who has seen this play before in the audience. It’s been done a lot in this area so finding a way to brighten things keeps the chaos from being oddly predictable. It really works!

I saw mostly the TTHS cast with Samuel Wright stepping in as Chris/Inspector Carter and Heather Shelley as Sandra/Florence. They do have a challenge of fitting everything for this play into such a small space (this is the smaller theater at The Ruth) but set designer Jason Baldwin manage to make it work (it’s probably the smallest second story setup I’ve seen for this play.)

I can see why some might say some of the scenes are a little rushed and not all the jokes land but most of them did. And like I said, there’s enough room for improvisation to keep things fresh and exciting.

At the end of the day with a comedy it all comes down to the jokes. Watching The Play that Goes Wrong with my family at The Ruth had me laughing throughout. One can’t ask much more than that. It is playing through August 16th so there’s still lots of time to see this hilarious play. Tickets can be purchased here.

The Play that Goes Wrong is a play written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre Company.

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