INTERVIEW: ‘Mind Mangler’ combines magic with mischief (and plenty of laughs)
Photo: Mind Mangler stars, from left, Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer. Photo courtesy of Pamela Raith Photography / Provided by BBB with permission.
The Mischief theater company, based in the United Kingdom, has found tremendous success around the world, including in New York City. Their mega-hit The Play That Goes Wrong opened on Broadway to rapturous reviews and sell-out audiences, and after an extended stay, the comedy about a murder mystery moved a few blocks away to off-Broadway’s New World Stages. Then came Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which played Broadway in 2023 and ran for several weeks in Los Angeles. Now two of the creatives behind Mischief — Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer — are back in New York City for the off-Broadway premiere of Mind Mangler: A Night of Tragic Illusion, a magic show that goes terribly, hilariously wrong.
Performances of Mind Mangler continue through Sunday, Jan. 28, at New World Stages, only a few feet away from the still-running The Play That Goes Wrong. After they close the show in New York, Lewis and Sayer are headed to London’s West End, where Mind Mangler will play a limited run of shows.
“The show evolved out of another show actually, a show called Magic Goes Wrong, which was a show about magicians doing a show that’s not quite going to plan,” Lewis said in a recent phone interview. “We created it with Penn & Teller, and one of the characters in that show was called Mind Mangler. He was really good fun.”
Lewis, who co-wrote the show with Sayer and Henry Shields, portrays the Mind Mangler on stage. His “stooge” character is played by Sayer, someone who is an obvious plant in the audience and often called up on stage to participate in magic tricks.
“Mind Mangler and the Stooge were characters that we really enjoyed, and so we decided to write their own show,” Lewis said. “And we took our show to the Edinburgh Festival last year. We did an hour-long version of it, and that was very well-received. So we decided to expand the show, create the second half and take the show on tour, which we did this time last year around the UK. We did three months touring there, and then we got the opportunity to bring it to New World Stages after having done Peter Pan Goes Wrong, one of our other shows on Broadway this spring. The show has grown from there.”
Sayer opened up about how the three creatives — himself, Lewis and Shields — write these comedic shows that have enraptured global audiences. Generally speaking, they write the plays together, with everyone sitting in the same room. They rarely take the script off by their lonesome and return a couple days later with written-out scenes and fleshed-out characters. Theirs is a true collaboration.
“During the pandemic, it was more Zoom-based, but in general we sit in a room,” Sayer said. “One person has the laptop. We’ll kind of plot it all out together, so we’ll kind of say what the story arc is in this piece, what are some jokes that really excite us, what makes us laugh. Meanwhile the characters, how do they react together, how do they fit together, what’s their kind of status? Then we just go.”
Sayer reported that there’s not much agonizing or worrying. They write the first draft relatively quickly, and then they take their time going back over the content and tightening the scenes. As Sayer said, they like to sand down the comedy. “I suppose we just go for it, and then I suppose after that it’s a case of raking through it and improving it,” he said.
Mind Mangler, which works as a comedy show for both adults and children, is not simply about a magician struggling to pull the proverbial white rabbit out of a hat. The audience comes to know who the Mangler is and what his motivations are in turning out this family-friendly entertainment, and it should be noted that some of the tricks actually work and impress the crowd.
“You definitely do find out quite a bit about him throughout the show,” Lewis said. “You find out that he’s recently gone through a divorce. You find out that he’s trying to impress a new producer who has put up some money for his show. You find out a little bit about his relationship with Steve, his stooge and also best friend.”
The success of Mischief can be a heady consideration. This little theater company that could has taken over the West End, Broadway, off-Broadway, Los Angeles and many points in between. There’s no shortchanging the success of The Play That Goes Wrong, which is nearing a decade for its London run, followed by the longevity of the New York City run. That many years means Mischief is mentioned in the same sentence as Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap and Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, two historic, long-running plays.
“I think we’re really, really lucky,” Sayer humbly said. “I personally tend to not think too much about the scale and scope of what Mischief is. I really love making people laugh, and I really enjoy writing comedy shows. Peter Pan, for example, and doing that on Broadway, it was just one of the best jobs I’ve ever had in my life, and it was so nice to sense the warmth coming from the crowds for our work. When we first came out here and did Play That Goes Wrong, that was amazing, but it was so phenomenal to come back and realize that we developed a following here. People had not just seen Play That Goes Wrong, but they’d seen the TV show [The Goes Wrong Show] and all that kind of stuff. So it’s super, super gratifying, but I suppose just in regards to the scale of it, I literally try to do the shows. I’m very grateful for the fact that we’ve got big audiences when we do them. … We just focus on the thing at hand, rather than the larger picture, because I think if you focus on the larger picture, you go a bit mad. So just focus on making the show as good as possible, doing my job when I’m stage as good as I can and just enjoying the ride. I think particularly coming out of the pandemic, where all of it kind of stopped, I’ve certainly come back with a real sense of joy when performing and joy to be in the room with laughter.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Mind Mangler: A Night of Tragic Illusion, starring Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer, was co-written by Lewis, Sayer and Henry Shields. The off-Broadway run at New World Stages continues through Sunday, Jan. 28. Click here for more information and tickets.
