Happily Never After : Once Upon a Murder pokes fun at fairy tales

Something is terribly wrong in fairy tale land. The promised “happily ever after” isn’t happening anymore. People are miserable and some are actually asking for divorces.

It turns out the Brothers Grimm, who wrote all the happily-ever-after tales, have disappeared. So Mother Grimm convenes a meeting of the characters affected to find out what happened to her sons.

Snow White shows up as do Goldilocks, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella & Prince Charming and Hansel & Gretel plus many others. With so many famous characters gathered in one place, temptation gets the best of a murderous-minded, fairy-tale hater and some of these beloved characters end up deader than Bambi’s mother.

That’s the premise behind Once Upon a Murder, the latest dinner theater, mystery comedy from Act Out Mystery Theatre, the troupe that specializes in murder mysteries spoofing pop culture and storytelling genres. 

Writer/director Paul Vander Roest clearly knows the fairy tale genre and where to poke fun at it for the most laughs. He has crafted a script filled with so many clever jokes that fly by so fast, you sometimes miss the next joke because you’re laughing so hard at the previous one.

Part of the joy of these shows is the many detours the script takes. Sometimes those detours feel like ad libs (which the cast does do frequently when the situation call for it), but there is a always a clear destination in mind. The detours just add to the enjoyment of the evening.

One of the twists that works particularly well is brining in characters from outside the genre to solve the mystery. In Once Upon a Murder, the flamboyant Uncle Arthur from the Bewitched TV series shows up to offer his detective skills, giving Vander Roest the chance to ham it up with a great Paul Lynde impersonation.

Particularly outstanding in this cast is Phyllis Nofts who does double duty as both Mother Grimm and later Ethel Mertz (from I Love Lucy). Don’t ask how Ethel gets there – just go with it, that’s part of the fun of the shows.

Also excelling is Melinda Parker who plays Goldilocks as a gum chewing, maneater in one act, then shows up as two completely different characters in the subsequent acts. In fact, this reviewer didn’t even realize it was the same actress in all three parts until the end when he read the program. Thus, I’ll leave the other names of Parker’s other two characters out, so as not to spoil the surprise. 

By the way, the character names are changed ever so slightly to avoid copyright infringement problems – example, Uncle Arthur becomes Uncle MacArther.

The other thing that really makes Act Out’s plays so delightful is that this is an audience participation mystery, meaning they recruit audience members to play small, but important roles to help solve the mystery. Recruited actors just stand at their table and read the 4-6 lines. Great acting is not expected, but sometimes in occurs nonetheless. At the end of the show, the audience gets to vote on the best audience actor, something that just adds to the festiveness of the evening.

With a great dinner from the Reef on the Water restaurant overlooking Long Beach Harbor included, this is a dinner and show that is worth the effort to catch.

For showtimes tickets, go to the Act Out Mystery Theater website.