Laughter has seemed in short supply this January. La Mirada Theatre, with its new production of the non-musical “The Play That Goes Wrong,” offers a vigorous antidote. Not scattered audience chuckles, but buckets of guffawing and rolling gales of belly-bending convulsions.
For instance, on opening night the guy to my left, nursing a bum shoulder and against the professional strain of having his focus on the local fires, murmured during the middle of the first act, “I’m worn out by laughing.” At intermission, he ruefully noted, “my shoulder is aching from all this.” “The Play That Goes Wrong” has been a source of fun and a theatrical force since the British-born farce welled up from modest 2012 beginnings in a London theater/pub called the Old Red Lion.
From left, Garrett Clayton (on floor), Mary Faber, Paige Robitaille, Michael-Leon Wooley, Regina Fernandez and Sterling Sulieman (on sofa) appear in a scene from “The Play That Goes Wrong,” on stage at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts through Feb. 16. (Photo by Jason Niedle, TETHOS) John Sanders, Mary Faber, Reggie De Leon and Trent Mills appear in a scene from “The Play That Goes Wrong,” on stage at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts through Feb.
16. (Photo by Jason Niedle, TETHOS) Garrett Clayton and Regina Fernandez appear in a scene from “The Play That Goes Wrong,” on stage at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts through Feb. 16.
(Photo by Jason Niedle, TETHOS) .
