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‘Shear’ silliness on Alliance Hertz stage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Shear Madness.” Through May 15.
The verdict: The audience picks the killer in this farcical whodunit. Roll with it.
We interrupt this newspaper story for breaking fluff —- I mean news —- from Buckhead.
A classical pianist on the comeback trail has been discovered brutally murdered in her home by a savage perpetrator who remains at large. Police are questioning four suspects in the upscale unisex hair salon located below the victim’s residence.
All of them have a potential motive in the bloody slaying of concert queen Isabel Czerny.
Although no weapons were found at the scene, authorities refuse to rule out the possibility that the virtuoso was struck dead by some of the god-awful jokes in “Shear Madness,” the record-setting farce unfolding on the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage.
Say what you will about Atlanta’s flagship theater at the Woodruff Arts Center: It doesn’t often get a chance to be really silly. Relentlessly. Unabashedly. Take-the-money-and-run-with-scissors silly.
This is it.
If your hair needs letting down —- or you simply miss “Peachtree Battle” —- you may want to call ahead for an appointment.
An ingratiating whodunit that’s at once eye-rollingly lame and pretty darn irresistible, “Shear Madness” is a proven audience-pleaser that blithely revels in its irrelevance, squirts out gags older than Dippity-do (the Village People) and banks on a formula that employs those twin delights of onstage gimmickry: local jokes and audience participation.
It seems to work: The Boston production has played more than 25 years and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.
Downstairs at the Alliance, the first act introduces us to the main characters on Kat Conley’s smashing lavender swirl of a set (sumptuously equipped salon, froufrou wallpaper, purple-and-beige checkerboard floor, chrome telephones).
During a hilarious workaday warm-up —- a wordless physical-comedy riff begun before the last audience members take their seats —- we meet salon owner Tony (irrepressibly swishy George Contini) and his tough-cookie hairdresser (Katie Kneeland). Next come two clients, a shifty-eyed antiques dealer (Maurice Ralston) and an arrogant socialite (Barbara Bradshaw), who may or may not be lovers.
When the unseen piano-playing landlady upstairs gets whacked, two undercover police officers (Jim Korinke, Jack Dillon) conduct an investigation that relies on the observational powers of the audience.
By following the action —- a rapid series of entrances and exits, in traditional madcap style —- theatergoers are asked to determine the identity of the killer.
Hmm, it could be just about anybody. Go figure.
One complaint with the Alliance production is that the writers strive for a local connection that feels cursory and forced. The Georgia punch lines inserted into the script can be tired (Lester Maddox, Zell Miller) and obvious (the Hawks, funny-sounding Snellville). You wish they had more edge, more attitude, more smarts. Maybe they will evolve. (Then again, one character’s aggressive defense of the Braves is pretty funny.)
Happily, the cast smooths over the show’s please-like-me air of desperation with veteran ease, generously ad-libbing, and threatening, the crowd. They also target a few ticketholders, quite unmercifully, for laughs. So watch what you say.
After the shave and haircut, you may get carved to bits.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2:30 and 8 p.m Saturdays; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through May 15. $25-$30. Alliance Theatre, Hertz Stage, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, www.alliancetheatre.org.
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