There’s murder afoot at the Winter Park Playhouse, and it’s both murder most foul and murder most funny.
“Murder for Two” is the show onstage to open the Playhouse’s 20th anniversary, and it’s a hoot.
Much of the fun comes from the setup: Only two actors perform the show, and they don’t get a moment to catch their breath. If they aren’t speaking, they are likely playing the piano — because the actors are also the accompanists. Upping the ante: One of the actors has to play all the suspects in the case; the other, who’s trying to solve the mystery, has to try not to laugh at his scene partner — a goal that was not always achieved at my viewing, but in fact added to the merriment.
Just watching the actors is enough to take your breath away as they act, sing and deftly pass the piano playing from one to the other without missing a beat. Speaking of breath, as our story opens author Arthur Whitney breathes his last.
Here’s the Agatha Christie-inspired plot, such as it is: Arthur returns home to discover that his wife has thrown him a surprise birthday party. Turns out it’s the last thing he ever discovers because as he opens the door in the dark he is shot and killed. A police officer, hoping to be promoted to detective, tries to solve the case before the real detective arrives.
Of course it goes without saying that all the suspects are eccentric. As all of them, Kevin Kelly dives in with gusto — remarkably using only a pair of glasses, funny voices and a rubbery face to indicate who’s who. His crusty Dr. Griff sometimes veers a tad too close to curmudgeonly Murray, but on the whole each character is recognizable and funny in its own way.
Of particular note: The drawling widow who yearns to be a star, the three pipsqueak members of a formerly 12-member boys choir, and the aloof ballerina Barette, who’s blessed with the funniest song, “So What If I Did?”
Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s songs on the whole are quite humorous with the silly rhymes needed to pull off this sort of nonsense with panache.
And while you might think Playhouse newcomer Jared Troilo, as the wannabe detective, would pale in comparison to Kelly’s whirlwind of character changes, he more than holds his own. He gracefully conveys the everyman to which the audience can relate — don’t we all feel sometimes like life is throwing one ridiculous thing after another at us and we can’t make heads or tails of it?
Troilo has immense likability, smart comic timing and carries the more difficult singing with aplomb — making him an excellent foil to Kelly’s vamping.
CJ Sikorski’s set is appropriately theatrical for a show that charmingly likes to acknowledge its staginess to the audience, and Monica Titus’s costumes get the job done by not distracting from the character changes.
Director Roy Alan carefully and cleverly injects the silliness with enough momentum to keep the plot moving. At my performance, things felt a bit sluggish at the start, but once the characters were set and plot established the laughs started coming. You can try to solve the puzzle if you want — as with Dame Agatha’s plots, things aren’t always as they appear — but you’ll probably be laughing too much.
‘Murder for Two’
Length: 95 minutes, no intermission
Where: Winter Park Playhouse, 711 N. Orange Ave. in Orlando
When: Through Aug. 28
Cost: $39-$46 ($20 students, active military, entertainment-industry workers)
Info: winterparkplayhouse.org
Find me on Twitter @matt_on_arts, facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Want more theater and arts news and reviews? Go to orlandosentinel.com/arts. For more fun things, follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
