INTERVIEW: Alex Mandell on how he ensures everything ‘Goes Wrong’ on Broadway
Photo: Alex Mandell and Mara Davi star in The Play That Goes Wrong on Broadway. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Daniel / Provided by BBB with permission.
The Play That Goes Wrong is one of the longest-running shows on Broadway, and that success is mostly because of the dedicated actors who bring this brilliantly wacky production to life every single night. But all good things must come to an end, and The Play That Goes Wrong will finally say goodbye to New York City audiences Jan. 6.
The comedy, now at the Lyceum Theatre, features a play within a play. The assembled crowd gathers to watch a murder-mystery production similar to Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, which has played for decades in London. The problem with this particular play, dubbed The Murder at Haversham Manor, is … well, where to start. The actors don’t know their lines. The set is falling apart. The sound technician is too focused on finding his lost Duran Duran CD. And, on occasion, actors are guilty of that cardinal theatrical sin: They break the fourth wall.
At the center of the comedy is Alex Mandell’s character of Max. He’s the ham of the company, loving the adulation of the audience and frequently throwing out winks to the crowd. Throughout the evening Mandell gets into a sword fight (hilarious), extends a phone cord as far as it can stretch (double hilarious) and bleeds effusively from his torso (triple hilarious).
“I’ve always been a fan of physical comedy like Monty Python or the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton,” Mandell said in a recent phone interview. “I grew up watching those movies, so this genre in particular has always been really exciting for me. And actually the play that made me want to be an actor was Noises Off originally. I saw my cousin do his high school production of Noises Off, and I was completely blown away. I sort of decided in that moment that I wanted to go to that particular high school and work with that director and start working in theater, so this kind of physical comedy has influenced me for a long time now.”
When Mandell was working in London’s West End, performing in another hit comedy, Hand of God, he actually caught the original production of The Play That Goes Wrong, which is still going strong across the pond. Little did he know that he would be playing the part of Max on Broadway one day.
“Found it completely delightful from start to finish, and like all the other quotes you read about the show, I was in pain from laughing the entire time,” he said. “I had no idea that it would come here. I had no idea that I would get a chance to be a part of it, but it all worked out that way. And I feel extremely lucky to do it eight times a week.”
Mandell views his character of Max as a puppy dog. He responds to a lot of stimuli throughout the evening, and he often breaks that fourth wall and interacts with the audience.
“He feeds off the audience’s adulation,” the actor said. “So, yeah, I think he’s a lot like a little puppy dog. He’s responding to a lot of different stimuli at once and doesn’t quite know where to go next. I have to say that if it weren’t for my castmates reining me, I’m not sure that I would get through the written plot of the show.”
To have a play that goes so wondrously wrong, the cast members need to hit their cues perfectly — which to the audience’s eyes looks like they are missing their cues. That means timing and choreography for the two-hour show are quite challenging.
“We had just three weeks of rehearsal before we replaced the [original] British company,” he said. “So it took a little while for it to settle in, for us to figure out a lot of different things at once. We were figuring out what this world is and what makes it funny, and then on top of that, there’s the very technical aspect of timing and standing in the right place and falling the right way. So there’s a lot of different challenges in any given moment of the show, and I’ve never been so forced to be so focused on stage. We’re listening to each other, and we’re responding honestly in the moment.”
What has helped is the routine of performing the same material eight times a week for more than a year. Mandell and the company have fine-tuned their ability to understand the minutiae of the production. They know which moments will gather the most laughs.
“We’re not mic-ed, so the vocal stamina is one of the greater challenges I would say for a lot of us, to make sure that we’re heard and projecting and keeping our voices healthy while we’re jumping around and rolling around and doing all the physical stuff,” he said. “The original creators of the show, it’s very important to them that things look real, and if me hitting my head on a post doesn’t look real, that moment won’t be set up for the numerous other jokes that follow it because of that one moment.”
This being Broadway, and these being professionals, Mandell predicts that the show works 90 percent of the time. When something does in fact go wrong, this may be the one play in the history of plays where the audience doesn’t know.
“When something goes wrong, it typically means something went right, and we just continue to play through that moment,” said Mandell, who also appeared in off-Broadway’s Sleep No More. “The audience has no idea usually what happened. … I’ll give you an example, I think around two months ago I slipped on a puddle of water that wasn’t normally there, and I ended up fracturing my tailbone. I had to leave at intermission, but from the audience’s perspective, it was the funniest thing they had seen that night.”
Ouch.
Mandell said he knew immediately that he was not able to finish that particular show; however, he did finish the scene, which was the sword fight near the end of Act I.
“Luckily, the sword fight is at the end of the act for me,” he said. “Basically that’s my last appearance, so I stood up. My castmates did a little check in with me, a secret check in to make sure I was OK. I said, ‘Yes,’ and we continued to fight. And at intermission, we had some ‘understudy juggling’ to do because my understudy was already on for another role, so he ended up switching costumes at intermission. And then another understudy came in and played his role, so it was an exciting night at the Lyceum.”
He added: “A lot of things are excusable because of the nature of the show.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Play That Goes Wrong plays through Jan. 6 at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
