This is a Play

Theatre & Play—MTC UptheAlley

I have always regarded Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest as a bulletproof play: no matter who performs it, it is structured and written so well that it will entertain an audience. I can now add This is a Play to that list.

This is a Play is a play within a play, where we learn the actors’ thoughts as they work through a mediocre production.

The company that presents this play, Theatre & Play, makes some unfortunate choices, and they are not professional-quality actors. Still, they drew constant laughter from their audience.

Their first mistake was spelling out the premise in great detail in the program. This betrays a lack of respect for their audience, and robs them of the joy of discovery. Second, they had the composer character on stage instead of a voice-over, which slowed down the show. And finally, the pace of both plays is equally slow. The MacIvor part should be crisp and clean, but it is as slow and overwrought as the turkey the actors are supposed to be presenting.

Even with these problems, I suspect the audience would have gone home happy. I just wish they had seen some of the other productions of This is a Play that I’ve seen.

Kevin Longfield