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Murder For Two: Christmas Edition
Dec. 28th, 2025 11:58 pmI saw this musical at the start of December at the Hayes Theatre. I'd never heard of it before. I hadn't even planned on seeing it.
What I had planned on seeing was Merry and Bright, a play about a department store Mrs Claus, who gets sacked from her decades-long job right before Christmas, and decides she won't give up without a fight. Starring the legendary Nancye Hayes, for whom the Hayes Theatre is named. It sounded fun and heartwarming. Unfortunately the run had to be cancelled due to actor unavailability. So this show was the replacement.
The premise is a classic locked room murder mystery. The twist is that there are only two actors: one playing the detective, and the other playing all the suspects.
Unlike other musicals with actors playing multiple characters, there were no costume changes! The actors conveyed the different characters with changes in voice and posture, often switching between characters several times in the same scene.
This was done in a broad comedy way. There were cheesy accents (the wife was played with a Southern accent, and the psychiatrist was played with a German accent) and visual shorthand (like the niece standing with her hands on her hips and her feet planted apart, or the ballerina posed in a plie with a duck face expression). Some of it was a bit panto, but it was effective.
This is very much a theatre production that has to be a theatre production. Pretending other characters we couldn't see were in the same scene, made it feel like a game of make-believe the actors and the audience were playing together, where we're all suspending our disbelief.
It led to surprises like the sudden introduction of a boys' choir that had been in the room all along. Or the fourth wall break where the detective was speaking to one suspect and demanded to speak to another, but the first suspect refused to yield way and let the other suspect appear.
I enjoyed the genderplay of the actors playing characters of different genders. It helped make some of the noir detective tropes feel less cliched.
The mystery had its share of red herrings, everyone with a motive and a secret to hide, and a satisfying resolution.
The songs were reasonably fun and entertaining. But what I was most impressed by was the music. As the promo said of the two actors: "Together, they play every character. They also play the piano." The actors play the piano! Usually taking turns to play the background music while the other person is acting in the foreground, but sometimes playing a duet.
And the Christmas Edition thing? Apparently, it's just the standard version of the musical, but with festive season references shoehorned in, which they lampshade up front.
What I had planned on seeing was Merry and Bright, a play about a department store Mrs Claus, who gets sacked from her decades-long job right before Christmas, and decides she won't give up without a fight. Starring the legendary Nancye Hayes, for whom the Hayes Theatre is named. It sounded fun and heartwarming. Unfortunately the run had to be cancelled due to actor unavailability. So this show was the replacement.
The premise is a classic locked room murder mystery. The twist is that there are only two actors: one playing the detective, and the other playing all the suspects.
Unlike other musicals with actors playing multiple characters, there were no costume changes! The actors conveyed the different characters with changes in voice and posture, often switching between characters several times in the same scene.
This was done in a broad comedy way. There were cheesy accents (the wife was played with a Southern accent, and the psychiatrist was played with a German accent) and visual shorthand (like the niece standing with her hands on her hips and her feet planted apart, or the ballerina posed in a plie with a duck face expression). Some of it was a bit panto, but it was effective.
This is very much a theatre production that has to be a theatre production. Pretending other characters we couldn't see were in the same scene, made it feel like a game of make-believe the actors and the audience were playing together, where we're all suspending our disbelief.
It led to surprises like the sudden introduction of a boys' choir that had been in the room all along. Or the fourth wall break where the detective was speaking to one suspect and demanded to speak to another, but the first suspect refused to yield way and let the other suspect appear.
I enjoyed the genderplay of the actors playing characters of different genders. It helped make some of the noir detective tropes feel less cliched.
The mystery had its share of red herrings, everyone with a motive and a secret to hide, and a satisfying resolution.
The songs were reasonably fun and entertaining. But what I was most impressed by was the music. As the promo said of the two actors: "Together, they play every character. They also play the piano." The actors play the piano! Usually taking turns to play the background music while the other person is acting in the foreground, but sometimes playing a duet.
And the Christmas Edition thing? Apparently, it's just the standard version of the musical, but with festive season references shoehorned in, which they lampshade up front.
