MADC’s production of Michael Green’s The Coarse Acting Show turns theatre’s worst nightmares into comedy gold. Director STEPHEN OLIVER shares with Laura Bonnici the secrets behind coarse acting and why audiences still can’t get enough of watching things go horribly – and hilariously – wrong.

As director of MADC’s The Coarse Acting Show – which plays at both Salesian Theatre and Manoel Theatre later this month – Stephen Oliver knows a thing or two about staging deliberate disasters.

“When I was fresh out of drama school, a fellow actor gave me a copy of Michael Green’s book The Art of Coarse Acting,” he recalls.

“His observations about theatre companies, actors and directors instantly resonated.”

Oliver is best placed, then, to explain the concept of coarse acting: “A coarse actor is someone who can remember their lines but not necessarily in the order in which they come, or someone who steals the spotlight, or who is hopelessly miscast in a role. Of course, the coarse actor doesn’t know he is bad – in his mind, he is marvellous,” he grins.

The play involves taking seasoned actors and training them to perform against their natural skills and instincts.

“And for audiences, it’s hard not to laugh when someone slips on a banana skin or walks into a lamp post.”

A forerunner to the West End smash-hit The Play That Goes Wrong, The Course Acting Show takes an affectionate jab at coarse actors and the unfortunate – and hilarious – mishaps that befall them. Yet, staging a play where failure is the goal presents its own challenges.

“Directing this production has meant taking seasoned actors and training them to perform against their natural skills and instincts,” Oliver explains. “It’s a strange process because I’m trying to undo everything that makes them great performers. Timing must be slightly off; gestures need to be slightly over the top – but never so much that it feels intentional.”

The Coarse Acting Show pays homage to a broad range of theatrical genres across six short plays. These include Streuth, a murder mystery so riddled with errors that Agatha Christie would be horrified, and A Collier’s Tuesday Tea, which attempts to channel gritty Northern realism but only channels dodgy accents.

The Coarse Acting Show pays homage to a broad range of theatrical genres.

All’s Well That Ends As You Like It dismantles Shakespearean drama, while The Cherry Sisters serves up a heartfelt Chekhovian piece – or it would be heartfelt, if not for a botched death scene.

Then there’s Last Call for Breakfast, an absurdist piece that barely makes it to the end, and Julius and Cleopatra, which features a chariot race that must be seen to be believed.

“For an actor, it’s a dream,” Oliver goes on. “The cast must shift from one performance style to another, requiring great skill, which they all have in spades.”

An evening where failure has never been funnier

Alan Paris leads the extraordinary cast, alongside Andrea Pace, Brendon Thearle, Craig Abela, Edward Caruana Galizia, Edward Thorpe, Francesca Briffa, Franco Sciberras, Jacob Falzon, Kate De Cesare, Leah Grech, Kim Dalli, Richard Godden and Shaun Rizzo.

However, even these experienced comedy performers struggled to keep a straight face while rehearsing such a hugely funny production, reveals Oliver: “One of the hardest things has been to stop the actors falling apart with laughter! But throughout, the brilliant cast has bought into the concept that, despite everything falling apart around them, their characters are desperately trying to get it right, in the vain hope that the audience doesn’t notice.”

Experienced comedy performers struggled to keep a straight face while rehearsing such a hugely funny production.

While tackling diverse theatrical genres and coarse acting without ‘corpsing’, the cast must also adapt to two different performance spaces. “It’s amazing how quickly a cast can adjust to a new venue,” Oliver says. “The dimensions of the stages differ, but we’ve accounted for that in the set design and technical aspects.”

Indeed, both the cast and crew of The Coarse Acting Show have risen to the occasion of creating an evening where failure has never been funnier. “You can’t play trick snooker unless you’re a highly skilled snooker player. This is a chance for audiences to witness the skill of some of Malta’s finest actors at their cleverest and funniest.

The Coarse Acting Show is a love letter to live performance, to the thrill of things going wrong and to the actors who persevere through it all.”

MADC’s production of Michael Green’s The Coarse Acting Show performs at Salesian Theatre, Sliema, on March 14-16 and at Manoel Theatre, Valletta, on March 21-23, with all performances at 7.30pm. This production is suitable for audiences aged 10 and over. Booking is now open at madc.com.mt for performances at the Salesian Theatre and at teatrumanoel.mt for performances at the Manoel Theatre. This amateur production of The Coarse Acting Show is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd on behalf of Samuel French Ltd: concordtheatricals.co.uk.