Review: Death by Chocolate | Garland Civic Theatre | Granville Arts Center

Garland — In the recorded message prior to performances of Death By Chocolate at Garland Civic Theatre, artistic director Kyle McClaran employs his best Orson Wellesian voice. McClaran's welcoming speech is witty and cute. Gets you in a fun mood.

Then, two and a half hours later, when the actors take their bows, there's a parade of spiffy costumes and flourishing poses, all bathed in passionate lighting. If you were auditioining for a hall of fame of curtain calls, these would be on the callback list. 

Okay, let's recap: Promising start. Snazzy finish. In between: Oh, Lordy.

This play by Paul Freed is a comedy murder mystery that is not very funny. It is both over-written and over-acted, a combination that is, pardon the term, deadly. What is meant to be charmingingly madcap emerges as relentlessly silly.

While wondering what Freed was thinking when he hatched this egg, and what McClaran was thinking when he decided to stage it, one musters considerable sympathy for the actors. At times, they actually manage to squeeze some humor from the misbegotten script. Marc Calloway, for example, works as hard as any five actors. And his word duels with Timothy Turner-Parrish help make the second act of this production much less of an ordeal than the first.

Calloway portrays the manager of a health resort. Turner-Parrish is the mystery writer who helps investigate various murders at the posh facility. McClaran has costumed Calloway in a plaid sport jacket and Hawaiian shirt, topped off, so to speak, with a dreadful red hairpiece, thereby transforming his character from a mere comic figure into a garish caricature.

Elsewhere, there is a clever running gag in which Calloway creatively mispronounces the name of a character named Dyxlexia (a drawling Meredith Moore). 

Duncan Rogers, sporting a bow tie and overalls, exudes comic elegance as an employee who seems to be part janitor and part butler. Rogers behaves as if he is in another play altogether. Good for him..

Larry Borero is fun to watch as the resort's aerobics instructor, prancing about McClaran's cluttered set like a fugitive from The Rocky Horror Show. Julia E. Cotton is less enjoyable as a young woman who has an eating disorder and, therefore, speaks with her mouth full of food. Mary Tiner and Marilyn Twyman, as the resort owner and a magazine reporter, respectively, come the nearest  to playing things straight. And Summer Steinfeld, as the Valium-popping nurse, lurches about like a stoned ballerina.

Saving the worst for last, we come to Sergio Liibo Rodriguez, as the gym director. This poor guy is the most blatant victim of the script. His character, described in the program notes as "an all around cad," is disagreeable in every aspect. Unfortunately, so is Rodriguez's clamorous performance.

A triumph of Method-ology? Nope, just a lot of dissonant sound and fury.