Today is Wednesday, March 12, 2025. Today I took a respite from the harrowing domestic situation under the “leadership” of the worst and cruelest president in ages, Donald J. Dump, by taking in a play with my friend of more than 60 years, “Harold.” Yes, we’ve been friends since the heady days of growing up in the Bronx in the mid-1960s. He is my oldest and dearest friend and Elliot has known him for over 20 years – ever since we got to know one another. So today, I took the F train to the 47th Street-50th Street subway stop to walk to TKTS, where I met Harold and his wife, “Rachel,” already on line, before 12. Elliot stayed home and intended to meet us for dinner later after the play.

I had no trouble finding my friend and his wife on line and snuck under the rope to join them. We greeted each other and soon got into a heated discussion as to what to see. I was partial toward seeing Oh, Mary! but that play did not have a 2 p.m. showing, so we had to abandon this choice. Of course, both Harold and Rachel inquired as to where Elliot was and I filled them in on his intention to come later. Harold was deeply engaged with a man and daughter in back of us who were taking in a play as well, while I engaged Rachel in chitchat. Before we knew it, the line moved quite quickly and we had to make our decision. We couldn’t agree to see one play together, so we split up: Rachel went to see Hell’s Kitchen, while Harold and I decided to see The Play that Goes Wrong which I saw on Broadway quite a number of years ago. This time the play was being staged further uptown: at New World Stages, on West 50th Street. That venue, as I recall, used to be a movie palace that was converted into four different repositories for plays.

It was still early, so we decided to all walk toward 9th Avenue where we had coffee and pastry at Amy’s Bread, on West 46th Street. I had a small coffee and some sort of scone, while Rachel had some chocolate twist and coffee. The scone tasted pretty good.

After this little repast, we broke up – Rachel to walk toward West 44th Street, with Harold and I walking toward 50th Street. On the way there, we stopped at a LGBTQ+ card store called Delphinium Home, located on West 47th Street. This is a cute, little shop that featured unique gifts and humorous greeting cards. I fell in love with a birthday card poking fun at Star Trek with the new appellation Fart Trek that featured Montgomery “Scotty” Scott from the iconic show on the front talking about “breakin’ wind!” with Captain James T. Kirk listening in. I couldn’t resist not buying the card. In front of the store, there was a game called “Cinephile” that appeals to film nerds out there like me. I couldn’t see what it cost. But it has intrigued me to such a point that I will do some research on it and see if I can buy it somewhere else.

Now it was time to find New World Stages and it was still early to go inside, so we sat on a stone bench around the theater in a pedestrian sitting area. We chatted a little more and then walked to the theater at 1:30.

We found ourselves in Stage 4 and looked for our seats in Aisle C. We were all the way at the end of the aisle and we had to get past a family of four who were seated ahead of us. But we had great views of the stage; I certainly didn’t need my bulky binoculars.

Then at 2, the fun began! Two members of the stage crew soon show up which is hard to tell if the play actually has begun or not. They start to try to fix things like a mantel place that doesn’t stay up; one of the crew, a young woman, actually asks a young audience member to hold up the mantel while she tapes it to the wall. Of course, it doesn’t stay up when the audience member returns to his seat. Then the stage manager, a man with the name of “Trevor,” starts addressing the audience: he tells us that someone has taken his Duran Duran CD.

Then the head of the drama club, who also plays the detective in the play, Inspector Carter, comes out with a monologue introducing the play. He calls it The Murder at Haversham and, not surprisingly, it’s a murder mystery in the guise of Agatha Christie but with pratfalls, breaking sets, disappearing props, entirely flubbed lines, and much, much more.

The plot as it is concerns the discovery of the body of Charles Haversham, the proprietor of the manor. The cast of characters consists of the undead Charles Haversham (Jonathan Harris) who seems to get up of his own accord at times, his friend Thomas Colleymoore (Robert Grove), his sister Florence Colleymoore (Sandra Wilkinson), fiancee to Charles Haversham, Cecil Haversham (Max Bennett), brother to Charles, and Perkins the mustachioed butler (Dennis Tyde). Before you can break a giggle, a plethora of calamities ensue that results in a chorus of guffaws and chortles from the audience. There are so many things that go wrong in this production that I can’t mention all of them. Everything flies by at breakneck speed that you can’t focus on any one mishap.

All I can say here is that the cast did phenomenally well in their respective roles. I can’t single out one performer more than the other; they all performed remarkably well, especially Max Bennett as Charles’ brother who continually mugs and winks at the audience more than anyone else, I believe, in the cast. He has some very funny bits in the two-hour play. Bennett also does double duty as Arthur the gardener who enters the play during Act II, with fake sideburns and an invisible dog on a leash.

Harold and I thoroughly enjoyed the play and thought it was a nice two-hour distraction from the problems of the day.

Now it was time to meet Elliot and Rachel after her play at Westway Diner where we decided to have dinner. I tried to interest Harold in some Thai or Japanese picks, but he preferred this eatery on West 45th Street. It’s his choice, so we had to respect it.

When we got to the diner, we saw Elliot standing by and we asked him how long he was there. He mentioned he was waiting almost a half hour. Within minutes, Rachel ambled by and we then all walked into the Westway Diner.

Anyway, we didn’t find fault with the food at the diner. Actually, we all enjoyed our meals in that none of us asked for doggie bags. I ordered a cup of lentil soup and chicken Florentine. Elliot ordered the chopped steak which he asked to be taken back because it was undercooked. But that was the only issue. Harold ordered a veggie club triple decker sandwich; I’m not sure what Rachel ordered, but it was evident that she enjoyed it since she didn’t leave much on the plate. We decided not to order dessert; I was the only one who asked for coffee.

Thus ended a very superlative day with my best friend and his wife in the theater district.

And so it went!

I think this is hilarious: there’s something wrong with the picture of the playbill of this play, The Play that Goes Wrong. Can you see it?