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June 17, 2005
Madness reigns at Arts Club
Longest-running non-musical gets audience participating in whodunit.
BAILA LAZARUS
Warning: If you don't like silly puns and slapstick à la
Naked Gun or (gasp!) Royal Canadian Air Farce, then
stay away from this performance. But if you want to laugh, despite
your best efforts, for almost two hours straight, then get online
or on the phone and order your tickets to Shear Madness.
Written by Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan, Shear Madness
is the longest-running non-musical play in American theatre. Its
recipe for success? It provides every type of humor, so that all
audience members are guaranteed to get a laugh out of the performance;
it employs intrigue by using a murder-mystery for the plot; it offers
one-liners bad enough to induce a smile on anyone's lips; and it
gets the audience involved to such an extent that performers take
questions, tips and advice during the intermission.
Taking place completely in one room of the Shear Madness
hair styling salon, the play introduces stylists Tony (Marco Soriano),
flamingly and unabashedly gay, with a propensity to talk and talk
and talk; and Barbara (Dawn Petten), a squeaky-voiced, big-bosomed,
blue-haired, tight-clothed ... well, you get the picture.
The two are already on stage, silently acting, while audience members
take their seats at the beginning of the show, with Diana Ross and
the Supremes playing in the background, heralding a great 1960s-'80s
soundtrack that includes "Tell Him" by the Exciters and
"You Sexy Thing" by Hot Chocolate. Clients come in and
out for a haircut or a shave - I think it's the first time I've
ever seen someone's hair actually washed on stage - and for the
first half-hour, it's all bad jokes and flamboyant, gay-hairdresser
antics. Then the woman upstairs is murdered (possibly for her piano-playing,
which drove everyone downstairs nuts), two of the clients reveal
that they are police officers and the fun begins.
After questioning the witnesses on stage, the police turn to the
witnesses off-stage, and the audience takes part for the rest of
the show. Not only do they get to play detective, by questioning
the performers, but they even have a hand in the outcome of the
play. (Enough said! I don't want to ruin everything.)
I have to say that when I read "audience participation"
in the playbill, my stomach turned at the thought of mixing scripted
theatre with theatre improvisation and tempting those uncomfortable
moments of embar- rassment when performers can't think of anything
to do. But that's not the case here. In fact, half the joy is watching
audience members argue with each other out loud about the facts
of the case, while the play is still going on in front of them.
And some of the funnier parts of the play are actually when the
actors can't help but laugh at each other and try hard to keep their
faces from giving them away.
OK, so there's lots that's funny, but what is wrong with the play?
Well, how about lines like, "My moon is in Uranus," or
"I know my constipational rights." Or how about: "Barbara,
how do you take him?" "With Prozac."
"What is she playing?" "Rachmaninoff." "Gesundheit."
Groooaaannnnn.....
But that's just my reaction. These punnies seemed to reach dozens
in the audience who laughed themselves silly at lines like, "That's
the famous Shubert Diamond. It comes with the famous Shubert curse
... Mr. Shubert." Yuk! Yuk! And then there's the bad slapstick,
people running on and off set just so they can slam doors and groaner
jokes with local references, including the Vancouver Sun, Crofton
House, Gordon Campbell's drinking, Burnaby ("You live out in
the country?" "Yah. Burnaby"), Tamara Taggart, Canadian
Tire, New Westminster and, of course, Surrey. Although I have to
say even I couldn't stifle my laugh at the seriously delivered line,
"There's nothing funny about Surrey."
Directed by Bob Lohrmann, Shear Madness plays until July
16 at the Arts Club Granville Island Stage, 1585 Johnston St. Call
604-280-3311 or visit www.artsclub.com.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and
illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be viewed at www.orchiddesigns.net
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