Playwright: Marilyn Abrams, Bruce Jordan and others
At: Chicago Theatre Downstairs, 175 N. State
Phone: 312-462-6350; $42.50
Runs through: Open run
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
Shrill Badness, oops—I mean, Shear Madness died an untimely Chicago death in 1998. The show had been running since 1981 at the Mayfair Theatre, but was forcibly closed when the Blackstone Hotel, which housed the theater, was shut down for safety reasons.
Shear Madness returned to Chicago last September in the newly carved-out downstairs space at the Chicago Theatre. As a Shear Madness virgin, I was curious about the show's mass appeal. After all, the 1980 Boston production of Shear Madness is the longest-running non-musical play in American history—and it's still running!
Much of the show's global success ( in dozens of different productions ) is surely due to the fact that Shear Madness is adapted to each city it plays, with localized jokes and the latest pop culture references.
Then there's Shear Madness' beauty salon setting and its basic comic whodunit premise. When undercover cops are stumped to finger which of the four suspects is responsible for the murder of Isabel Czerny, an upstairs classical pianist landlady, they turn to the audience for their suggestions and observations to solve the mystery.
The pop-culture updating and multiple endings guarantee that no two shows will be the same, which offers an incentive for return trips to the Shear Madness beauty salon.
First, the good news about the Chicago Shear Madness revival: The show provides six Equity actors with regular employment. And as an anchor of the revitalized Chicago Theatre District in the Loop, Shear Madness helps pump tourist dollars into Chicago's economy.
Now my cranky curmudgeon critical brickbats as presaged by my two-word introductory review:
Shear Madness plays like a haphazardly-plotted TV sitcom with pushy shrieking performances. The show also traffics in potentially offensive exaggerated gay stereotypes. ( Brian Sills as hairdresser Tony Whitcomb minced around so much he could have been mistaken for a limp-wristed food processor. )
I suppose that the inclusion of a gay character in such a successful comedy should count for something, but in our more enlightened age, Tony feels like a pink-faced minstrel. Part of the problem could also be from seeing a cast that didn't fully gel together comically.
I must admit that I went into Shear Madness with the wrong spirit. Not only didn't I have any drinks from the bar; I was initially shushing people around me who were loudly commenting on jokes and talking to each other as if they were at home watching TV. ( This was before I realized that the audience's assistance would be solicited. )
At least Shear Madness provides an accessible and participatory entry to live theater for people weaned on TV. Great art it ain't, and apparently the audiences who have kept the show running don't care.
