River City Community Players "Little Murder Never Hurt Anybody" review by stillofthenight

A little gut busting never hurt any body!
Rating: 5

A Little Murder Never Hurt Anybody
River City Community Players

First allow me to start off by saying that I have only chosen to write this review because the program asked me to....come to think of it, I wrote a review for Happy Days over the summer, put on by this same theater, because they specifically asked the audience to do so....I believe that more theaters should do this so that they (the crew/company/theatre boards) can get more constructive feedback it positive or negative...It is just a good idea!!



Anyways, now that that has been said, I loved this show! This community theater has indeed impressed me once again! Their set was phenomenal, their scene changes were made to look like part of the show with the stage hands dressed as house servants (ingenious!), and there seemed to be no noticeable tech flaws (as far as I can recall). The show was pure comedy from the actors' incredible deliverance to a couple of comical musical choices (the one at the end of act one is my favorite, but I won't spoil it for you).

Character dynamics were spot on. Bunny, the dimwitted rich girl, and her remarkably witty and charming fiancé - I could tell the pair, ahem, fed off each other. The clueless detective working against the penguin, excuse me, butler, Buttrum, (with no first name) who has a small side project of his own. And last but not least in love, the childish, easily breaking down husband and his beautiful hardly melodramatic overconfident wife... They all left me sitting there begging for more!

I was fortunate enough to catch the show on the second Saturday night, and I was one of, oh I'd say, one hundred people, which in my opinion is not enough for any theater that is doing as well as this one has been so far and this is only the 4th show I have ever seen there. As a final note I believe that the director Jeff Adams greatly deserves a shout out, especially considering as the raffle lady mentioned in the lobby, that this is his first show ever directing, and for his and their community's sake I hope it is not his last. There is no doubt in my mind that this rookie director picked a perfect cast and crew to help him create his vision for this show, congratulations Mr. Adams! I highly recommend this play!

P.S. if it seems as though i have been rambling, it is because I was. For this show is special to me, it was the first show I ever did in my hometown in eastern Missouri...