In the great film, Sullivan's Travels, a movie director learns an important lesson. The director thinks the working class wants a movie about their trials and tribulations. He learns instead that what the working class wants is a good laugh. And that's what's so great about Shear Madness. It's funny and it's involving.
Here's the premise: a murder is committed above a hair salon. We have met four characters and one of them dunnit. Two police officers, and the audience, spend the majority of the play trying to figure out who that might be.
The complication of audience participation is what makes the show so breathtaking and so delightful. When the characters are explaining their actions to the police, the audience is encouraged to correct them if they lie. The actors have to quickly adjust their stories. In the second act, the stakes get even higher. The audience can ask questions and the characters have to explain themselves. Daring? Who knows what those audience members are going to say? The fun is watching the actors deal with all of this. Shear Madness is part scripted and part improv so the actors and the audience are pretty much in the same boat: no one knows what's going to happen next.
What's amazing is how eager the audience is to be helpful. During the intermission, the police officer character stands at the back of the theatre and takes suggestions from audience members. People were actually lined up to talk to him. For some reason, I found this incredibly touching.
But of course it isn't just the audience that makes this show tick. It takes a cast of talented comic actors to perform in a show that is never the same from one night to the next. Shear Madness is full of local references and jokes that revolve around the news of the day. I am sure, for example, that the Dunk River debacle happened after the show opened. Yet there was a joke about it. This requires that the cast to be even more on the ball and not a single one disappointed. Maybe it was in the script (look like you're having fun), but the cast seemed to genuinely be enjoying themselves and that makes it more fun for the audience.
Wade Lynch, as the salon owner and hairdresser Tony, is a standout. Given the choice, he heads right over the top every time but not so far that we lose him. Laurel Smyth as the insufferable socialite, Mrs. Shubert manages to be both imperious and hilarious at every turn. Maybe it was the fab red dress, but she commanded the stage whenever she was on it.
The only weird note in the whole show comes near the end. At some point, you realize that this a comedy about an old woman who has been stabbed in the throat. The audience went kind of quiet then, but Tony the hairdresser brings us back with a good laugh and we forget.
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