“Murder For Two” Offers Manic Comedy, Music

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James Odom (left) portraying Dr. Griff, sings alongside Brian Walters (right) during “Murder for Two.”

TheatreSquared’s newest production, “Murder For Two,” may as well be called the “James Odom Character Marathon Music Show.”

Delightfully manic, goofy and bizarre, the play — written by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, and directed here by Morgan Hicks — is a spoof homage to murder-mystery theatre of yesteryear. It’s a musical whodunit plot, but in this play all ten of the suspects are played by James Odom, as Brian Walters portrays Marcus, an aspiring detective who’s taken on the case to solve the murder of novelist Arthur Whitney. Oh, and both actors play the piano throughout the play, rather expertly.

So how does one man portray so many different characters? Props.

With a handkerchief and an exaggerated southern drawl, Arthur Whitney’s widow comes to life; with a fedora plain gray on one side and pink flowers on the other Odom’s a bickering married couple; with round glasses a brittle, oath-breaking psychiatrist; a cute bow, an excitable aspiring criminologist; by gracefully extending limbs, a prima ballerina. There’s even more that show up throughout the play.

It’s insane, possibly literally, how many characters James Odom is able to perform as, and with such gusto to boot. The props aren’t used as a crutch to help the audience, Odom’s facial expressions, distinct accents and voices, and genuine movement of each character are convincing enough to feel like each character is unique. There were few moments that felt like the characters overlapped or where Odom miscued a character. Walters occasionally adds in to the prop switch gag, too, without mistake.

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“Detective” Marcus (Walters) provides accompaniment to Odom’s (right) portrayal of Barb and Murray, a bickering married couple wearing similar hats.

Walters keeps Odom’s one-man-circus in check, as well as push the plot forward with each interview of each suspect. Every character is given a raucous musical number, and watching Odom sing — convincingly — as multiple characters in their distinctive accents and voices is probably the best part of the play.

Walters is a fantastic piano player, and the musical accompaniment for each song is as impressive as the rest — but campy, as intended. When Odom switches to piano for Walters to take a few musical numbers of his own, the guy is a total pro.

The music in a sense is a character of its own. The piano playing doesn’t shy away from adding in hint-hint tones to either spell dread, surprise, rousing heroics, or eeriness. Because both actors play the piano, there’s the ongoing gag of tug of war on the bench and the keyboard.

Some of the best and most impressive moments are when the two duet together on the piano. The physical comedy of the two fighting for room on the keys combined with the frenetic pace of the old-timey music is a lot of fun to watch. In fact, the piano playing alone could stand alone as a piano recital.

The show is zany and definitely a lot fun, but at the end of the day it’s a mainstream romp. There’s clever lines like “We’re BFFs forever, that’s redundant but whatever,” that certainly make this play playfully fun and light, but that’s about all the play will offer up. At times the play can feel a little too out of control and it’s easy to get lost in the craziness.

Some of the references and jokes poking at traditional murder mystery theatre and such may be lost on the audience. I’m certainly not well acquainted with the style of theatre, but leaving the play I felt like I got the elements that had been exaggerated from the original style, whether it was cliche motives, seduction or foreseeable twists.

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Steph (Odom, left) and Marcus (Walters, right) piece together clues of Arthur Whitney’s murder.

Of course, “Murder For Two” is definitely a mystery, and none of the characters are clearly innocent. You may find yourself working the same clues alongside Marcus, trying to stay a step ahead of him, but the play does a good job keeping you guessing who killed Arthur Whitney the whole time.

To become a self-aware writer here, I realize I’m headed into snooty critic territory, but it’s true. This is theatre to laugh and enjoy and be impressed by the sheer talent of the actors, but it’s not something that’s going to eat away at your thoughts or challenge you in any way. To be fair, this play isn’t trying to do any of those things.

You can take the whole family to this and even the most shrewd of family members will likely leave having cracked an impressed smile at the spectacle that is TheatreSquared’s “Murder For Two.”