MONMOUTH MADNESS: The Mystery of Irma Vep. |
| The Mystery Of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam | Directed by Janis Stevens | Produced by The Theater at Monmouth | in repertory through August 23 | 207.933.9999 |
The new mistress of Mandacrest, Lady Enid (Dustin Tucker), has a hard time appearing in the same room at the same time as her swineherd, Nicodemus. This isn’t because Nicodemus is a hunchback pegleg perv with a predilection for unspeakable tongue gestures. He’s all of those things, but no: It’s because Lady Enid and Nicodemus have in common something deep, abiding, and not unlike a soul. What they share is the same thing that Lady Enid’s new husband Edgar (Mike Anthony) shares with his oh-so-proper house-servant Jane: a cross-dressing, versatile, and very fast actor. Such vaudevillian intimacies are rampant in Charles Ludlam’s Obie-winning two-men-as-everyone comedy, The Mystery of Irma Vep, and Janis Stevens directs two consummate performers in The Theater at Monmouth’s riotous production..Ludlam’s affectionate satire gorges on a banquet of allusions — to the Brontës, Shakespeare, The Mummy’s Curse, The Wolf Man, Nosferatu, and Hitchcock’s Rebecca — as Lady Enid contends with the lonely moors; werewolves, mummies, and vampires; and the ominous presence of Edgar’s dead first wife, Irma. As the excellent Anthony and Tucker quick-change their ways through characters and melodramatic twists, they both send up and show off the age-old art of stagecraft, with wigs, thrown voices, trap doors, and sound effects: Tucker lurches out through the French doors as Nicodemus and enters five seconds later as coiffed Enid. Without any provocation, Enid and Jane procure dulcimers, seat themselves by the hearth, and proceed, straight-faced, to “play” them with the help of absurdly elaborate sound effects. Between impeccable timing and lightning switch-ups of costumes, gaits, and voices, Anthony and Tucker exemplify theatrical virtuosity even as they skewer it.
In a play so dedicated to stagecraft, cast and crew need an especially close dovetail, and Monmouth’s designers have all elements working in synch. Chez Cherry’s wine-colored drawing room flips around handily to become an Egyptian tomb, Rew Tippin’s luxurious sound design includes plenty of ectoplasmic strings and exoticism, and Lynne Chase’s lighting haunts with decadent camp. Thanks to stage managers and assistants, timing is breakneck but seamless.
Except when it isn’t — which is also part of this show’s fun. As the pace builds and each player’s characters just miss meeting each other coming the other way, the fourth wall acquires some cracks, and there ensues a field day of meta-theatrical fun. Some of the play’s most delectable hilarity comes in the players-within-the-players’ expressions of knowing resignation during theatrical boners: “Jane” ad libs to remind “Enid” that Nicodemus can’t possibly be summoned to her; Enid lifts her hands from the dulcimer and then purses her lips, long-sufferingly, as its music continues without her.
And worth the price of admission is the moment when Tucker’s Enid and Tucker’s Nicodemus finally “meet,” wretched and wanton, in a doorway. It’s a sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy: two irreconcilable manifestations of an ego groping each with lurid and doomed abandon. Sound like any other actors you know?
Megan Grumbling can be reached atmgrumbling@hotmail.com.
