Comedy: you'll die laughing

Performers Charlie Johnson, Shanna Johnson and Edi Gragg examine "the evidence" during a dress rehearsal of "A Little Murder Never Hurt Anybody, showing at the Fox Playhouse at 8 o'clock nightly Dec 18-20. Nick Wright/Daily Mail

Just a note to put your worries at rest: the plot of the comedy "A Little Murder Never Hurt Anybody," playing at the Fox Playhouse Theater this weekend, is less complicated than the instructions for building an atomic bomb. But not by much.

The plot of Ronald Jay's "rollicking farce" might well have been written by Peter Sellers as an appropriate vehicle for the Marx brothers. The basic premise of the plot is simple enough: Matthew Perry (Charlie Johnson) makes a New Year's resolution that within the next year he will murder his wife (Edi Gragg) so he can start enjoying the bachelor-pleasures he sees his single friends having. (Edi Gragg's prolonged laugh as she reacts to her husband's preposterous plan is one of the evening's high points.) Add to this mix the Perrys' ditsy daughter "Bunny" (Shanna Johnson) and her fiancé Donald (Tim Moore); their butler (Lynn Ewing III), and the detective Plotnick (Steve Reed), and you've got a plot whose crazy twistings and turnings become clear only at the very ending.

It's so much fun watching Charlie Johnson (the "grand old man of the CCPA,")on stage again. And it's nice to see Steve Reed and Lynn Ewing III, Edi Gragg, Shanna Johnson and Tim Moore, too.

Sean Nicewaner directed "A Little Murder …," and the First National Bank sponsored the show After a stressful day of Christmas shopping, check out this wacky comedy. You'll die laughing.