First Nighter: Beauty Salon Crime Comedy “Shear Madness” is, as Advertised, Sheer Madness

Shear Madness has just arrived in Manhattan for the first time after playing for decades(!) in Boston. Curiously, people who hear about it seem to expect not to like it, and, as I arrived, I was among them. How appealing does a seeming farce sound that’s been fruitcaked with broad topical jokes—apparently updated daily—and takes place in a beauty salon?

Okay, it doesn’t matter how it sounds, when as it plays at New World Stages on Will Cotton’s evocative set, it turns out to be consistently entertaining. We’re in the Shear Madness salon. Even before the action begins, one stylist at work is Tony Whitcomb (Jordan Ahnquist). He’s a gay blade—or barber with blades, who isn’t Sweeney Todd. The other is Barbara DeMarco (Kate Middleton, but not the English one). She’s gussied up in leopard top and frayed denim miniskirt. (Rodney Harper is the costumer).