This is silly nonsense! Not trying to be anything but hilariously silly nonsense, and succeeding marvelously at being the absolute best silly nonsense around. The Play that Goes Wrong is entertainment at its purest, irresistibly funny and engaging. All you need to know is that an inept college group is putting on a bad murder mystery play, and failing horribly at it. What fun!

There is, however, some thought and wit and (gasp) character development lurking about. As an example, the main obvious joke about collegiate actor Max (Dave Hearn) is that he is childishly delighted (and pulled out of character) by laughter and applause. A secondary, smarter joke can be seen in how he deals with kisses. He is extremely reluctant to kiss his leading lady, and other moments point toward his only experience with kissing being French kissing a boy (!).

Designer Nigel Hook starts the slapstick before the lights even go down, as “stagehands” attempt to deal with doors that won’t stay closed and the like. That’s hardly the last thing to go wrong, leading one character to scream at one point “this set is a deathtrap!” It’s worth noting that, for a variety of unexpected reasons that’s a big laugh line, as well as tip of the hat to successful stage murder mystery comedy Deathtrap.

Director Mark Bell and the show’s company (several of whom share the writing credit here) have their hands full making sure all this dangerous-looking slapstick comes off with immaculate timing and no actually lethal falling objects. I can’t remember the last time I laughed this often or this hard, so of course I highly recommend this silly, silly nonsense.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.