THE STORY: The West. The 1920s. Mabel’s had a hard few weeks. A dynamite accident at a gold mine has left her wealthy but orphaned; she’s shipped off to a calculating aunt, whose nephew is charged with seducing her to control Mabel’s fortune. This hapless courtship reveals a shared love of silent movies and a plan for greater things. A story of mishaps and moxie, the romance of Hollywood and ultimately a Hollywood-caliber romance. A slapstick comedy from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Crimes of the Heart.
“Set in the 1920s and inspired by silent film comedies, right down to [a] live piano score and title-card style narration, LAUGH—an imperative, not a noun—is a Muppety assemblage of outrageous zut alors! accents, awful fake beards, pendulous fake boobs, and cream-pies-in-faces…In intention and in effect, it is decidedly and unreservedly silly.” —Washington City Paper
“[LAUGH] displays Henley’s deeply weird sense of humor…The archness of the dialogue reminds you of a Coen Brothers movie at its most eccentric—Raising Arizona and O Brother, Where Art Thou? come to mind.” —DC Theatre Scene.
