Theater Review—

A Confusing Comedy By Sherman Players

 By Julie Stern

SHERMAN — Charles Ludlam, one of the founding members of The Ridiculous Theater Company, was known for the many plays written in his short life that combined farce, parody, melodrama and general goofiness. Based (I think) on an old French movie, The Mystery of Irma Vep is a take off on the gothic, mixing together elements of Daphne duMaurier’s Rebecca with various Agatha Christie venues: country houses, Egyptian archeology, and werewolves.

Besides the exaggerated commingling of familiar themes, Ludlam’s gimmick was that all the various parts be played by two actors continuously racing around the scenery in order to change their appearance by using wigs. Additionally, the play was originally done as Monty Python style high camp, with two men playing the female parts in drag.

Now Jocelyn Beard has chosen to stage the play at Sherman Playhouse, using a man and a woman, with each of them cross-dressing so that Lady Enid is played by Adam Battelstein looking like Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and Lord Edgar is played by Mary Jane Phelan looking like a middle-schooler in a fake mustache.

I think this is a theatrical piece whose success depends on having a willing audience of enthusiastic fans – like The Rocky Horror Show – where the crowd knows what it has come to see, and can’t wait to see it again. Surfing the web I found reviews of past productions, all of which found it screamingly funny, an evening of non-stop hilarity.

Some of the people who attended the opening night at Sherman, however, were apparently seeing it for the first time – as was this reviewer – and their reaction seemed more one of general perplexity than delight.

Adam Battelstein, well known for his association with Pilobolus, is definitely versatile, doing a wonderful slouching version of the cantankerous wooden-legged Nicodemus Underwood, a man with too close a connection to a wolf named Victor, and then doing a limp-wristed segue into the persona of Lady Enid, the insipid second wife to Lord Edgar Hillcrest.

Similarly, Mary Jane Phelan goes from the surly Mrs Danvers-like housekeeper, Jane Twisden, so devoted to the memory of the departed first wife (Irma Vep) into the role of the sputtering Egyptologist-country gentleman, Lord Edgar.

As more characters come into the story the pair has to run faster and faster, out one door and into another, having barely managed to change costumes.

If you enjoy ridiculous parody and Rocky Horror is what floats your boat, by all means row on up to Sherman.