Murphy’s law says: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”
Iola High School’s drama students put that saying to the test with “The (One-Act) Play That Goes Wrong,” now showing at 7 o’clock Thursday and Friday at the Bowlus Fine Arts Theater.
It’s a gut-busting “play within a play” with a classic “Clue”-esque murder-mystery theme. There’s a dead body in the parlor. Assemble the usual suspects. Call in the inspector from Scotland Yard.
But for the “actors,” the entire production may be more of a horror show. Nothing goes as it should.
Doors don’t open. Pieces of the set fall to the floor. Props go missing. A candle falls into a trash bin and catches fire. Actors miss their cues, forget their lines and lose their place. There’s even a bit of a tribute to Buster Keaton.
One character is knocked unconscious, setting up some of the most hilarious bits of the show. Then, the unprepared but ambitious stage manager must quickly jump in to take her place because, of course, the show must go on.
The actors — and the actors playing the actors — persevere like true professionals. They’ll make the most of their moment on stage no matter the odds against them.
Director Richard Spencer, in a program note, said the play is currently being performed by schools, community theaters and professional theaters across the nation. It’s been performed in Chanute, Pittsburg and Topeka over the past month. Why?
“Maybe we all decided it was time to laugh,” Spencer wrote. “Not little chuckles but great big belly laughs.”
THE IHS drama students are more than up to the challenge, seeming to relish the melodrama and physical comedy with all the seriousness afforded a Broadway production. (“The Play That Goes Wrong,” written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields opened in London in 2012 and is still running, and was performed on Broadway in New York from 2017 to 2019.)
Brigham Folk kicks things off as the murder victim. Even as a corpse, the talented Folk delights with some very undead-like behavior.
Max Andersen, as the victim’s best friend, discovers the body along with Kendall Glaze as Perkins, the butler. The gifted Andersen takes on his role as if he’s reciting Shakespeare, with extravagant flourishes and vibrato. An exuberant Glaze serves up paint thinner in place of whiskey and writes smudged notes on his hand to remember his lines — or at least some version of them.
Versatile veteran Macie Hoag is unrecognizable as the vivacious femme fatale who was engaged to the dead guy but having an affair with his brother. Hoag swirls, twirls and shines through some of the play’s most hilarious gags. 
Everett Glaze enters with a literal flourish. As soon as he walks on stage, he takes a bow. His physical comedy and comic expressions are perfectly on point.
Cole Moyer, the maestro of melodrama, pulls it all together as the inspector. His interrogation techniques always seem just a bit off kilter, making it all the more impressive as Moyer never breaks character no matter how wacky it gets.
