A tour de force for two actors, Murder for Two engages them in solving the mystery of who killed a famed author of murder mysteries. Tuned in to summertime audiences’ love of light plots and musicals, they deliver a tour de farce that pleases overall despite activity overkill. Primarily as policeman Marcus Moscowicz, Paul Helm hopes for promotion to detective by uncovering “whodunit.” He comes to assume it’s someone who’d be revealed a villain in author Whitney’s new novel, as have others in his works. Helm typically explains his present quest in fun piano numbers with appropriate words and music that yet have no more life outside the play than does Wiley. Playing a bevy of suspects, Kyle Branzel shifts identities in a frenzy of changes of voice, facial expressions, bodily contractions and expansions, and pace. He uses effectively small costume changes, such as red-rimmed glasses donned for the resentful widow or one cap turned three ways to denote (also by his kneeling) as many young kids. Branzel’s most physically demanding flexibility involves an often swiftly ex-tend-ed leg for Whitney’s ballerina mistress. I usually dislike dragging an audience member onstage to participate in shenanigans, but the gal on press night was not only willing but greatly able to be in control and get some of the biggest laughs. With all the dexterity shown in piano playing and moving about the whole stage, I was surprised at how often the actors stepped on (the supposed space of) the corpse. Bruce Jordan proves committed to use for Murder for Two every physical comedic trick he’s handled so well in his directorial career. Included, thanks to set designer Ken Goldstein, is trashing all but the revolving piano in the Whitney manor. Thom Korp’s sounds accompany quite well most of the cast’s antics as do Susan Angermann’s two basic costumes serve them.
