Just as Washington, DC, bids farewell to the Kennedy Center’s decades-old slapstick comedy Shear Madness, The Keegan Theatre has stepped up to fill the farcical void — at least for the next few weeks. Its splendid production of the zany British romp The Play That Goes Wrong fizzes with idiotic aristocrats, ornery scenery, and breathtaking pratfalls. Shakespeare, it is not, nor does it rival Monty Python’s sharp wit and topicality. But if you’re looking for a different kind of cage fight this summer season, have a seat and laugh your head off at this knockabout play-within-a-play. You can even bring the kids. First, the premise: A modest British drama society is staging a new Agatha Christie–style murder mystery that its members hope will be their breakthrough production. Even before the play begins, however, nearly everything in the drawing-room set goes awry. Stage manager Annie (Martina Schabron) and light-and-sound technician Trevor (Darren Badley) struggle to ready the scenery. The fireplace mantel keeps falling off, doors refuse to open, and props won’t stay put. Audience members are even invited onstage to sweep up paper snow before curtain time, only to watch it tumble out of the dustpan again. Once the action begins, Trevor’s spotlights fail to find the nervous Director (Matthew Pauli), finally settling on his feet, while other errant beams fully reveal Charles Haversham (Jared H. Graham), supposedly a corpse, trying to crawl noiselessly onto an otherwise darkened stage. If this schtick isn’t your idea of fun, stop reading. It’s all hilariously downhill from there. Darren Badley (Trevor) and Jimmy Bartlebaugh (Cecil) in ‘The Play That Goes Wrong.’ Photo by Cameron Whitman. One murder, then another — on the night of Charles’s engagement party, no less — draws the local police inspector, also played by Pauli, to creaky old Haversham Manor. Charles’s vampy fiancée Florence (Leah Parker), his duplicitous brother Cecil (Jimmy Bartlebaugh), his friend Thomas Colleymoore (Jackson Saunders), and the stalwart butler Dennis (Rebecca Ballinger) all fall under suspicion. But in this case, who cares whodunit? With barely a whiff of a plot, and virtually no character development, this confection is less a drama than a deftly executed series of manic comic set pieces performed by terrific actors playing bumbling fools. The show’s achievement lies not in its mystery but in the precision with which it dismantles itself. Scenic designer and technical director Josh Sticklin has created a living, breathing masterpiece of a set. Walls collapse on cue, and a balcony supported by a single pillar seems practically engineered for disaster, forcing the actors to perform heroically while avoiding serious injury. The result is a ballet of man versus man-made object, with characters locked in combat against phone cords, vases, pistols, and a particularly troublesome settee. With scenery collapsing all around them, it’s no wonder these hapless players forget their lines, mispronounce words, and repeatedly miss cues. In one uproarious sequence, they become trapped in a verbal loop, repeating the same lines over and over until the audience nearly passes out from laughter. Several cast members are knocked unconscious by falling debris — or by a castmate’s misstep — forcing the equally hapless technical crew, scripts in hand, to rush onstage and substitute for their fallen comrades. Rebecca Ballinger (Dennis), Jimmy Bartlebaugh (Cecil), Matthew Pauli (Director), Jackson Saunders (Thomas Colleymoore), and Leah Packer (Florence) in ‘The Play That Goes Wrong.’ Photo by Cameron Whitman. Costume designer Elizabeth Morton adds to the visual merriment with foppish 1920s British country-house attire, including a certain lavender flapper dress that first appears on the campy fiancée before amusingly migrating to her stand-in. Fight and intimacy director Sierra Young keeps the energy flowing, while sound designer Brandon Cook cleverly inserts snippets from Trevor’s playlist at the most comically inappropriate moments. Michael Innocenti directs all these moving parts with skill and aplomb. Beneath the campy melodrama, his actors display the extraordinary level of trust required to pull off this kind of physical comedy with split-second precision. While few of the cast members resemble trained athletes, they are nevertheless called upon to execute falls, fights, and collisions that would send most of us straight to the emergency room. The Play That Goes Wrong may someday rival Shear Madness in longevity. The original production, by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields, has been running in London since 2012 and won Best New Comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards. A Broadway production ran from 2017 to 2019, and the show continues Off-Broadway. It’s easy to see why it endures. Beneath the chaos lies a deceptively sophisticated piece of theatrical engineering, one that makes failure look effortless. With no topical axe to grind, Keegan’s spiffy production offers a frothy antidote to the heavy cultural battles playing out across the DMV this summer. Duck inside Keegan’s delightful aerie on Church Street, cool off, and enjoy a generous helping of the very best kind of human folly. Running Time: Two hours with one 15-minute intermission. The Play That Goes Wrong plays through July 12, 2026, at The Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church St NW, Washington, DC, with performances Thursdays–Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3:00 pm, and select Mondays at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $55–$65 (with discounts for seniors 62+ and students/under 25) and available online. SEE ALSO:Keegan announces cast and creative team for ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ (news story, May 18, 2026)‘Shear Madness’ is closing. Long live ‘Shear Madness.’(feature by Nicole Hertvik, June 7, 2026) ...read more read less