dinner with a side of “murder”

Can you solve the mystery at Four Queens' Canyon Club in Las Vegas?

By VERONICA HENRY | November/December 2008

Photo: PR

The lights are dim, salad is being served, and then a shot rings out and screams reverberate throughout the room. Police and an ambulance are dispatched, and the recently departed is wheeled away. This is the opening scene at ”Marriage Can Be Murder,” an interactive murder mystery dinner show at the Canyon Club in the Four Queens in Las Vegas.

Over the remaining two courses, the grim reaper pays a visit to three additional guests while audience members don detective hats and contemplate who might be the killer in their midst. To make things interesting, actors are interspersed in the crowd—dropping clues and fueling suspicions. Furtive stares and sidelong glances abound as everyone becomes a suspect.

Guiding the evening with satirical wit is a silver-tongued hostess who dishes out uncannily germane sound bytes. The lead detective is a cop—of questionable skill—sporting a pair of painfully uncomfortable looking tight shorts, a sight that doesn’t go unnoticed by the hostess.

“Marriage Can Be Murder” is the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Eric and Jayne Post, who also act in the show. Eric directs and writes scenes with input from the cast and Jayne. After a successful seven-year run at The Egg and I, locals and tourists can now catch the show at the Four Queens in the Fremont Street District.

But guests aren’t the only ones who enjoy the ride. Nightly interactivity with the audience ensures the cast has just as much fun. “Every crowd makes it a different show,” Eric says. A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, Eric is grateful for the run he’s had. “Being able to do what you love and make a living at it…I’m blessed.”