>>PREVIEW
SHEAR MADNESS
Runs until May 26
Vertigo Mystery Theatre
Vertigo Playhouse (Tower Centre)
If theatre is perishable, a commodity that spoils in three weeks and then evaporates forever, then the ultimate role model of any viable commercial show must be the noble Twinkie. In the realm of urban legend, at least, the Twinkie will survive us all in the coming apocalypse, waiting patiently on the shelves of deserted stores while the cockroaches slowly rebuild society around it.
It will take centuries, no doubt, but by the time those noble insects have finally engineered a democratic society that eerily mirrors our own, by the time they have erected proscenium arches and sit happily in their hive-like theatres munching on found Twinkies, they will be watching one show: Shear Madness.
The longest running non-musical show in American history, Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan’s Shear Madness has been packing in audiences continuously since 1980 with its audience-participating whodunit formula – a chance for would-be audience sleuths to shatter the fourth wall and solve the mystery on stage. Even in Calgary, whose public theatres are usually restricted by the limits of their seasons and the availability of its talent pool, the show’s first run at Vertigo Mystery Theatre ran for six months in 1999, dwarfing its original six-week schedule and running through the summer.
Now, for the third time, Vertigo is producing another run of the murder mystery behemoth, with its run already extended for two weeks. Returning for his third performance as Tony Whitcomb, the proprietor of the play’s titular unisex hair studio, Vertigo artistic director Mark Bellamy is preparing to reassume a comic role he describes as a cross between Lucille Ball and Bugs Bunny. It’s a reprisal that’s been long in coming, now almost seven years after its last production.
"When I took over as artistic director I had a lot of our subscribers asking me: ‘Now that you’re running it, are you going to do Shear Madness?’" he says. "So I waited a few years and went, ‘Oh, all right.’"
Performing under the direction of Robert Lohrmann, himself a veteran of Washington, DC’s decades-long production at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Bellamy is joined by Shari Wattling as Barbara DeMarco, Lindsay Burns as Mrs. Schubert, David LeReaney as Eddie Lawrence, Tony Eyamie as Detective Rossetti and Scott Roberts as Mikey. Together, the six actors will essentially improvise a night whose direction can change with an audience suggestion or the particular quirks of a day’s performance that includes details of the day itself like weather and current events.
Asked whether the play’s formula places it more in the realm of dinner theatre than a mainstage production, Bellamy is adamant that the play belongs in the Vertigo Playhouse.
"It’s not gimmicky, it’s incredibly clever," he says. "There are so many of those interactive murder mysteries, and it’s not like that at all. Underneath it, there is a murder mystery and you could play this straight without a laugh. What’s unique about it and what makes it so successful is the audience’s involvement, the way they get involved in reconstructing and solving. Because a lot of those interactive murder mystery things that proliferate, they’ve got one ending. There’s a right answer. This show doesn’t have a right answer, it is the most democratic piece of theatre that you’ll ever hope to see."
Certainly, Bellamy is counting on Shear Madness to continue to deliver populist thrills to expanding audiences. As the last production in the company’s 30th anniversary season, the improvised murder mystery occupies a special, almost seasonal place in Bellamy’s heart.
"This is kind of our Christmas Carol," he says, alluding to Theatre Calgary’s long-running Christmas production. "I don’t think you could do it every year but this is as close as we come to it. Will this be the last time? Maybe we’ll have to see how that goes."
While Bellamy is hopeful for a continuing run of Vertigo’s final production, he cautions that decade-long runs aren’t in the plan for Calgary’s murder mystery theatre company. Commercial theatre may seek out the Twinkie, but this is one item with a definite expiry date.
"That won’t happen with this one, there will be a finite cutoff date because I need a vacation," says Bellamy, "or I will be very cranky coming into next year." |
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