By Chen Ying (25A01C), Isaac Chan (25A01B), and Keng Yi, Nicole (25S03S)

The fourth wall was broken. And the fifth, sixth, and seventh.

Props falling, actors fighting on stage, and “I’m Just Ken” blasting through the speakers instead of the intended sound effect. These would, typically, be a director’s nightmare fuel, and would spell disaster for any production.

Typically.

At The Play That Goes Wrong performed by Raffles Players for their 2024 College Production, this is precisely the intention—for the play to go wrong. 

In this particularly ‘meta’ play, Raffles Players takes on the role of the Stamford Raffles Drama Society putting up a production of The Murder at Haversham Manor, a whodunnit murder mystery set in a manor in the 1920s.

An enthralling experience

Yet, from the very start, things begin to go ‘wrong’. As audience members stream in and take their seats, production team members frantically go around asking if they have seen “a Barbie CD”. Unable to find his beloved CD, Trevor, the sound engineer (Thaddeus Heng, 25S02A) hands the introduction over to Chris, the head of the drama society (Neha Raja Raman, 24A01D). The show must go on, after all.

Chasing the spotlight (literally, as it swings wildly across the stage), Chris welcomes the audience to the play. Alluding to past mishaps by the drama society, he assures the audience that this time everything will, of course, go absolutely fine.

The play commences on the evening of the engagement party between Charles Haversham (Chua Xin Chen, 25A01B) and Florence Colleymore (Zoey Dong Yijie, 24S07C). Sprawled dramatically over the couch, Charles is found dead by the butler, Perkins (Elena Gan Yin Feng, 25A01B), and Thomas Colleymore, Florence’s brother (Patil Rohan Vinod, 25S06J). 

Strangely, though, Charles seems to have trouble laying still, and things are set into motion as setpieces begin dropping right off the walls.

Joined by Florence and Cecil Haversham, Charles’ brother (Ryan Verano Johan, 24S03C), the group phones for help. Shortly after, Inspector Carter (also played by Neha) arrives on the scene.

From there, it seemingly proceeds like a classic murder mystery: hidden secrets are divulged, and relationships are revealed. Cecil casts the blame on Thomas due to his overprotective nature towards his sister, and Inspector Carter in turn accuses the unfaithful Florence and her paramour Cecil of the murder.

It is around this time, though, when Florence suffers an unfortunate collision with the door and has to be carried off subtly by the other characters.

She is soon replaced by Annie (Thecla Viyoshi Magha Anagaleka, 25S03H), a stage manager who at first gives an unconvincing performance, but later proves to be a quick study.

A turning point occurs at the midway point, when gunshots are heard and Cecil is revealed to have been murdered. The remaining four come to a conclusion: since Perkins had already locked all of the doors to the manor, and Arthur the gardener had left hours prior, the only possible suspects remaining are themselves (cue dramatic violin).

Later, when Arthur returns, things both intentional and unintentional only spiral further out of control. As Florence (now Annie) attempts to seduce him, he coincidentally knocks her unconscious as well. With no other alternatives, Trevor steps up and takes her spot in a shockingly intense and confusingly romantic turn of events. 

As the plot unfolds and the truth comes to light, a series of clues including a lace handkerchief with the initials “F.C.” reveal the culprit to be none other than Inspector Carter himself.

Just when the situation seems dire, with the Inspector drawing a gun on Perkins, Charles makes his long-awaited and definitely unprecedented reappearance.

Tensions escalate and Arthur is left locked in the lounge with Inspector Carter and his accomplice, Thomas. With the crew still unable to locate Arthur’s dog, Winston, he must take matters into his own hands.

In a sequence you can only really appreciate for yourself, the play comes to a close with basically everyone dead. Charles stands before the audience and declares his regret for the way things turned out, before promptly tripping over Thomas’ dead body and dying as the scene cuts to black.

Blessings in disguise

The paradox of The Play That Goes Wrong is that it must do so in the correct way. Throughout the almost two-hour runtime, the lines between intentionality are blurred. Actual mishaps are mimicked so well, you find yourself wondering, “Did they even mean to do that?” Then again, it doesn’t even matter since you’re laughing anyway.

And indeed, the play is so full of jokes it feels neverending—even in the unlikely event that one doesn’t land, chances are that there’s one coming in the next three seconds that does.

The sets, props, light and sound effects, costumes, and of course actors themselves create a kind of controlled chaos that draws in the audience. More than anything, their slapstick acting is what really sells it: in a way, the play is immersive by doing everything they can to break the immersion. Simply put, it’s meta at its finest.

In addition, Players makes this original play their own by clearly knowing and appealing to their audience, with the Barbie jokes and the love scene between Trevor and Arthur. This is all too clear in the riotous cheers throughout the performance and stunning reviews by audience members.

Before everything went wrong…

Although what the audience witnessed was just a two hour production, months of hard work actually went into this play beforehand. In actuality, preparation for The Play That Goes Wrong started all the way back in early February, beginning with the selection of directors and stage managers.

While watching the play, one of the first things you’d notice as an audience member would be the exquisitely detailed props, which always seemed to break at just the right timing. And just like everything else about this play, the construction of sets and props in this play was also incredibly different from the norm. 

Usually, production teams try to ensure that a prop is functional and durable, but the special nature of The Play that Goes Wrong presented a unique challenge for Raffles Players’ Props and Sets department. According to Maira Budiputri (24A01C), the Head of Props and Sets, they not only had to ensure the props were functional, they also had to ensure that they could be reconstructed after breaking, to complement the plot. 

This required a lot of trial and error. For instance, the stretcher that was meant to break for comedic effect at the start of the play involved a velcro that kept falling off, and the team also had to test different poles for the stretcher. Another prop that involved significant effort was a sword that breaks while being used, and the Props and Sets team had to figure out how to “break” the sword without actually breaking it, such that it could be put back together for the second show.

Aside from Props and Sets, the production team behind The Play that Goes Wrong also faced numerous other challenges while preparing for the play. One of these challenges was having to balance between preparing for the biennial Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) and The Play that Goes Wrong, the yearly Players’ College Production, which both happened to be taking place this year. This resulted in a conflict of venues when it came to using the Raffles Players’ sole venue, the Theatre Studies Room. 

Additionally, another clash of venues occurred with regard to where the play was being held. Usually, the Raffles Players’ productions are performed at the Performing Arts Center. However, this year, the Performing Arts Center had to be used for the Chinese Literary Drama Cultural Society’s (CLDCS) annual concert, which coincided with the second showing of The Play that Goes Wrong. As a result, the Raffles Players also had to get used to a much smaller venue on top of having their rehearsal venue to themselves rather late (only after SYF preparations ended).

However, the production team remained resilient in the face of adversity, and ultimately overcame all these challenges to put on a beautiful play. Perhaps the true lesson that we can learn from both The Play that Goes Wrong and its preparation process, is this: 

Life might not always go our way, but just like the comedic characters in The Play that Goes Wrong, even when everything goes wrong, you just gotta pick it up.