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Murder at Bedside Manor

Make no bones about it: Skeleton steals the show

Thursday, January 1, 2009 6:55 AM

For the Columbus Dispatch

A skeletal plot is par for the course in interactive comedymysteries, but a talking skeleton is among the most amusing characters at Cloak & Dagger Dinner Theatre.

    Murder at Bedside Manor, returning Saturday night and continuing through March at the Morse Banquet & Conference Center, peps up the formulaic genre, with increased audience interaction.

    The lively skeleton is a clever addition to a story about the hidden and conflicting motives of doctors, nurses and other health-care workers attending a medical meeting where a new miracle drug ("Curinol") is unveiled.

    Is the drug truly a cure-all - or a danger?

    Or will the real threats of death come from those greedy enough to seize control of the drug?

    The skeleton, amusingly manipulated and voiced by puppeteer Mike Ruth, doesn't offer many clues amid his wry and jaded commentary, which frames many scenes.

    Ruth's full-bodied performance in a double role - as the skeleton and an observant orderly - often brings the show to impish life under the direction of Mark Sartor.

    Veteran cast member Deborah Vrobel is coldblooded but seductive as the melodramatic Nurse Vein, who vies for male attention with kittenish Miranda Hinton as dumb blonde Nurse Scratchit.

    Geri Martin displays charming versatility in three roles, including the Southern-fried aristocrat Barb Biturate (get it?) and Judge Moody (a thin parody of TV-show judges).

    Martin has fun (and generates the most laughs) with the psychic hokum of Dolly, an Eastern mystic who foresees everything - except the next murder.

    Understudy Jonathan Cullison, filling in nicely for David Baisden at a recent performance, performed in three roles, including the Australian-accented Dr. Dingo and the much-derided "HMO Guy."

    Doug Browell, who recently replaced Jeff Smith as Old Dr. Young, is funniest when paired with Young Dr. Young (Daniel Dickerson) as a father-and-son Hardy-and-Hardy team.

    The funniest character switch happens when one performer (who should remain unidentified) is transformed onstage into a convincing impersonation of rocker Ozzy Osbourne.

    But the biggest stars - even more than the skeleton - are the audience members selected for bit roles. At a recent performance, the funniest moment occurred when a young man was invited onstage to mimic various sounds - from gulping and chicken squawking to Elvis.

    The audience, meanwhile, is coached to repeat "Ooh la la!" as a running joke - the main payoff, aside from a few token scenic-design touches, from the show's medical meeting taking place in Paris.

    Billed as "a new prescription for laughter," Murder recycles and extends cliches of the genre in ways jokey to clever.

    While more-serious theatergoers might not consider even this above-average interactive whodunit a "Curinol" for the winter blues, those who enjoy dinner-theater interactivity and broadly acted spoofs should have more fun than usual.