Brett Ryback and Jeff Blumenkrantz
(photo credit: Joan Marcus)
“Murder for Two” at the New World
Stages
Although only two talented performers occupy the stage for
ninety minutes, there is a roomful of neurotic murder suspects (all played by
Jeff Blumenkrantz) and one very nervous detective (played by Brett Ryback) in
this musical murder-mystery farce. For all of the clownish shenanigans that are
dispersed amidst some comical digressions at the piano, my patience was tried
waiting for things to get resolved.
More wearisome than winning, “Murder for Two” is a collaborative
effort by Kellen Blair (book and lyrics) and Joe Kinosian (book and music) that
is at its best when it is musical and at its worst when it attends to the
frenetic antics prescribed by the book and by director Scott Schwartz.
The thorny thicket of a plot involves the attempt of a novice
detective to figure out who murdered the great American novelist who lies
stiffly among his guests on the living room floor of his stately home. Amid the
redundant questioning of the usual suspects of both genders there is relief and
it comes with the razzmatazz of the songs mainly attended to by Ryback. The
tall and lanky Blumenkrantz plays the various male and female suspects, each of
whom are dependent upon his ability to change his voice, twist the contours of
his face with nary a change of costume.
Granted that Blumenkrantz’s lickety-split transformations are to be admired
and they occasionally deserve a laugh, they grow as tiresome as the plot . . .
which goes on about twenty minutes longer than it should. Let’s hope that “Murder
for Two,” which has moved downtown for an open-ended run following its initial abbreviated
engagement last summer at the Second Stage Uptown, finds an audience more
receptive to its fun than was I.
“Murder for Two”
New World Stages, 340
West 50th Street
For tickets $47.00 - $77.00 call (212) 239 - 6200
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