In a seemingly innocuous hair salon in Georgetown, anything can happen. Therein lies the wild plot for “Shear Madness,” now in its 24th year at The Kennedy Center.
Along the way, never is a moment lost to make the show more topical. “Shear Madness” has been around quite a long time, but never in this form. In fact, the show changes every night. Improv and satire are king in the Theatre Lab at the Kennedy Center.
With constant references to U.S. Speaker of the House “John Boehner’s tanning salon,” the Republican primary, “the Style section of the Post” and a hat tip to Dupont Circle, the script is tailored to the local audience, as are all of the “Shear Madness” performances playing around the world.
Running the show in every way is Nick O’Brien (Aaron Shields, who studied theatre at AU). With the help of his trusty sidekick Mike Thomas (Joel David Santner), O’Brien is looking to catch the evil mastermind who killed Isabel Czerny, a washed-up concert pianist who lives above the parlor and is preparing for her upcoming revival tour when she was suddenly stabbed with a pair of — you guessed it — shears.
And that’s where the fun begins. The next hour and a half is a whirlwind of confusion as the two undercover cops, with the help of the audience, interrogate their four witnesses.
The most fabulous of those suspects is Tony Whitcomb, marvelously played by Neil A. Casey, the wonderfully flamboyant barber and owner of the Shear Madness Hair Styling Salon, who has a bit of a grudge.
At his side is Barbara DeMarco, the flirty shampoo girl and the heir to Czerny’s material wealth.
And what’s a whodunit without some romance? DeMarco’s love interest, the sleazy Eddie Lawrence (Nick DePinto) slinks around the salon, allegedly trying to buy Czerny’s grand piano.
And finally, the fabulously wealthy Mrs. Shubert (Brigid Cleary), or Pookie, if you prefer, does everything she can to get out of that salon just to make her trip to Bermuda. However, the four are caught in the same predicament as the mystery unravels, and they must navigate their way to the truth while locked in the Shear Madness Salon.
But here’s the twist: there are four different endings, and the audience gets to choose. O’Brien and Thomas poll the audience on their chief suspects shortly after intermission, where attendees have just finished interrogating the actors themselves. From there, the actors have taken their cues and play out the ending with the discovery of the true criminal.
In the performance The Eagle attended, the audience accused Lawrence. But, O’Brien retorts as the play concludes, Whitcomb, DeMarco and Shubert all could have been the villain, and Lawrence could have been an innocent Rachmaninoff lover with a natural fear of blood. It all depends on the whim of the audience.
Do yourself a favor: if and when you go see this show, vote for Whitcomb. Casey truly delivered the most outrageously hysterical (read: crazy-over-the-top and simply comedic gold) performance of the evening, and there’s no doubt it would be a riot to see him take center stage as his rage against his neighbor takes him to the edge.
But no matter how you vote, you’ll get a night of entertainment, and it will never, ever be the same as the night before.
