“Drop Dead,” the newest undertaking at the Mansfield Playhouse, has been described by those involved as one of the funniest productions the Playhouse has ever done. In fact, it’s so funny it kills.
No, seriously. It kills.
In an interesting mash up of genres, “Drop Dead” combines farce and the classic murder mystery in “play within a play” style, where the actors find their sinister plot lines extending beyond the script. Director Mark Jordan described the show as “devastatingly funny.”
“Everyone with every comedy says something to that effect, but with this one it’s actually true,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of plays over the years, and this is one of the funniest scripts out there. We’ve taken it and squeezed every possible laugh out of it and invented a few of our own along the way.”
Jordan explained the play begins with a group of “hapless” theater people who are trying to put on a show to save their fumbling careers, desperate for everything to work correctly. Along the way, as the show progresses poorly, the actors are killed off one by one. Despite the tragic end to many characters throughout the show, this show is not to be mistaken for a tragedy.
“One thing we have not yet achieved going into our sixth week of rehearsal is we’ve never made it all the way through without someone cracking up,” said Jordan with a laugh.
The cast of 10 local actors is ahead of schedule with rehearsals; even after one actor needing replaced only a couple weeks into rehearsal due to an injury. Rehearsals Monday night incorporated costumes for the first time, prompting a lot of laughter backstage beforehand.
“Frankly I hope the costumes trip them up a little and give them something to deal with because otherwise they’re going to get very restless,” said Jordan. “We’re actually a little ahead of the curve at this point; if we absolutely had to go live tonight with an audience we could, and that’s unusual for a production to be that ready.”
“Drop Dead” challenges audience members with a more dense style of comedy; instead of one big joke at a time, Jordan said he prefers many smaller, funny things going on in the background or off to the side that keeps the eye moving.
“Not every person in the audience will be able to see every possible thing that’s going on all at once, which is intentional,” he said. “There’s so much going on that you can look anywhere on the stage and find something fascinating going on, and that actually encourages some people to come back and see the show more than once because you can’t catch everything.”
Bucking tradition even more is the integration of actors and audience members before the play even begins. Jordan explained the entire cast would be in costume and in character and roaming about the lobby as guests of the Playhouse filter inside.
“They’ll be having conversations, arguments, at one point there’s going to be a chase, so that will be going on throughout the building,” he said. “As soon as people get here, they’re going to be in the midst of all this chaos, which is very rare for a show.”
“Drop Dead” will be featured at the Mansfield Playhouse on April 4, 5, 11 and 12 starting at 8 p.m., and again on April 13 starting at 2:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at the Mansfield Playhouse website.
“This is such a funny show, and the cast is insanely talented,” said Jordan. “There’s something extra special about this production.”
