'EXPERIMENT IN MADNESS' Mystery inspires laughs

The cast includes the audience in scenes, looks for aid in solving a murder.
By TRACEY D'ASTOLFO
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
HOWLAND -- Local playwright Gloria Dunnam Bayowski takes the audience on a delightfully zany and slightly eerie trip to a salon that specializes in turning back the hands of time -- literally!
"Experiment in Madness," a dinner-theater production directed by Jeanne Elser, opened Friday in the Grand Pavilion at the Avalon Inn.
Audience members are drawn into the comedy murder mystery, as the cast includes them in portions of the play and later asks them to help identify the killer.
At the outset of the play, GiGi, MiMi and LuLu -- three frumpy, unmarried, middle-aged women with poor self-images and thick eyeglasses -- receive mysterious invitations to the Garden of Eden salon.
Comedic performance
Upon their arrival, the guests -- played exceedingly well by Lori Broderick, Anna Frabutt and Denise Sculli -- are greeted by the intriguing and odd employees of the salon and tantalized by the promise of youth, beauty and success.
Bill Finley and Regina Reynolds enhance each other's comedic performances as the salon owners -- effeminate, money-hungry Adam and his ditzy partner and temptress, Eve. Serpent-tila, the salon's Russian fortune-telling massotherapist, is played hilariously by Paula Strobel, and Glenn Stevens convincingly depicts the splendidly suave, youth-obsessed Dr. Dorian Gray, the salon's in-house scientist and Casanova.
The Grimm Sweeper, an aging and inept janitor played by Terry Shears, adds a twist to the plot. Shears also plays MacIntosh, the bumbling and easily-distracted detective who attempts to solve the crime.
The offbeat play is a visual feast as the newly transformed salon customers enthrall the audience with demonstrations of their talents.
Bayowski, who has three other published plays, said she came up with the idea for the play after her acting troupe asked her to write a comedy. She said the play is a "satire of our beauty-obsessed culture," but mainly she wrote it "so the audience could have fun and laugh."
The play, produced by the author's newly formed theater company, Muse Entertainment, will be at The Avalon Inn through Nov. 13. Reservations can be made by calling (330) 856-1900, Ext. 499.