Everyman’s ‘Irma Vep’ Is a Wickedly Funny Gothic Romp
In 'The Mystery of Irma Vep,' two quick-change artists deliver a masterclass in camp comedy, drag, and gothic farce.
Returning to the scene of an uproarious crime, Everyman Theatre revives Charles Ludlam’s cross-dressing farce The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful, with several key players from the company’s hit 2009 production back in all their glory.
First, Ludlam’s spoof of Victorian manor mysteries and melodramas absolutely holds up as a well-built laugh machine powered by an indomitable cast of two. Created in the midst of the AIDS crisis expressly to provide levity at a time of despair and uncertainty, The Mystery of Irma Vep is as apt as ever in providing an outlet for processing the absurdity all around us.
Laughter is still resistance. So is the late playwright’s proviso that the two performers cast to quick-change their way through the play’s eight different characters and 30-plus costume changes must be of the same sex. Gender-bending drag is, thus, essential to any Irma Vep production, and is pulled off with sublime ridiculousness in this new staging, directed by Joseph W. Ritsch, with costume design by David Burdick.
The gaudily patterned frocks and gowns and suits supplied by Burdick — also a veteran of the 2009 production, directed by Ludlam’s life partner Everett Quinton — hit the right spot of evoking the era and characters, and serving as dynamic visual jokes unto themselves, topped by the added humor of perfectly hideous hair and wigs designed by Denise O’Brien.
One wig, in particular, the jumble of red curls plopped on the head of Lady Enid, always triggers chuckles, due in no small part to the accompanying costumes, and of course, Bruce Randolph Nelson’s reliable deadpan performance, reprising his role from the earlier run.
Perhaps as key a returning player as Ludlam’s script, Nelson is wondrously deft whipping between Lady Enid, new mistress of the mysterious Mandacrest Estate and Nicodemus, swineherd of the estate, among others. The actor manages lightning-fast character transformations amid fast-moving physical action without missing a beat — or, if he does, managing to transform the slightest mistiming into resonant comedy. (Kudos, too, to the backstage crew abetting every switch.)
It’s a tour-de-force performance, ably complemented by fellow company member Zack Powell, as jodhpur-sporting Egyptologist and master of Mandacrest, Lord Edgar, as well as the manor’s forbidding housekeeper, Jane.
Wielding a more winking approach to the humor (though not always to the benefit of the characterization), Powell is especially amusing as Jane. Like Rebecca‘s wicked Mrs. Danvers, the secretive servant is still loyal to the former lady of the manor, Lord Edgar’s first wife, Irma Vep.
The play’s direct references to the gothic horror of Daphne du Maurier and Alfred Hitchcock and the classic Universal horror films of the 1930s are richly reflected in Daniel Ettinger’s evocatively askew set design, and sound design by Germán Martínez saturated with claps of thunder and haunting screams.
Dark and stormy nights at the manor are effectively eerie, especially in a genuinely chilling scene of a lady being attacked by a masked intruder. They’re also fabulously farcical and flat-out absurd, from the animated portrait on the wall, to the “dead wolf” Lord Edgar drags into the drawing room.
Chased by werewolves, mummies, vampires, and other things that go bump in the night, Lady Enid and Lord Edgar are still running into walls and bringing down the house at a time when the world really needs the laugh.
The Mystery of Irma Vep (★★★★☆) runs through June 22 at Everyman Theatre, 315 W. Fayette Street, in Baltimore, with a Pride Performance on June 5. Tickets are $45 to $99, with accessible Pay-What-You-Choose seats available for every performance. Call 410-752-2208, or visit www.everymantheatre.org.
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