Die laughing

It is a mystery why people actually like the ancient genre of theater called murder mysteries, but “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940,” now playing at Riverwalk Theatre, a parody of the  style, is a genuinely hilarious hoot.

The ensemble of nutcase characters in this exaggerated hyper-drama represents loonies of the highest magnitude, and the actors portraying them are both bouncing-off-the-walls caffeinated and as competitive in scene-stealing as all get out.

Every line is milked for maximum laughs, and the dizzying pace of the action on stage becomes funnier and funnier as the plot — or what there is of a plot — unfolds.

Whodunit? Who cares?  This is a “Ten Little Indians” meets “Noises Off” kind of play with blackouts that end with the lights coming up to reveal the latest dead character, and with darkened subterranean passages substituting for multiple doors. 

Riverwalk veteran Joe Dickson, as down-on-his luck stand-up comedian Eddie McCuen, ultimately wins the contest for most intensely agitated actor on stage, but Bob Murrell and Sarah Sonnenberg, as musical writers Roger Hopewell and BernIce Roth, run a close second and third. Sonnenberg’s character gets drunk and then drunker and has a stage wobble that has to be seen to be believed. 

Michael Hayes plays Ken De La Maize, a caricature of the stereotypical Hollywood director of the 1940s. His character prances across the stage, a whirling windbag of wonderment, full of himself and oblivious to his oafishness.

As Helsa Wenzel, the oddball Teutonic maid storm trooper, Erica Lynn Beck walks on and off the stage with true Germanic abandon, before revealing herself to be none other than … the plot thickens.

It takes a good while for this cast of crazies to entirely find their groove, but by the end of Act One and throughout most of Act Two, they find precise comic timing, generating ridiculously overlapping pratfalls and stage combat that is mistaken for arduous lovemaking.

These antics prompt audience applause and a rollicking laughter that bubbles up and prompts one to shake one’s head. No shtick is left behind in this play — it is farce in the extreme, and done very well.

Who is the dreaded “Stage Door Slasher”?  Where did these Nazis come from?  Why does Susan Chmurynsky, as pompous producer Marjorie Baverstock, pronounce “divine” as “devune”?  All these questions and more are answered by the play’s end.

’Musical Comedy Murders of 1940’
Riverwalk Theatre
228 Museum Drive, Lansing
Through June 12
7 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and 2 p.m. Sundays
$14 adults; $12 for seniors, students and military.
Bargain Thursdays $10, $8 seniors, students and military
(517) 482-5700