Theater Review—

‘Irma Vep,’ The Way it Was Meant To Be

By Julie Stern

WATERBURY — When it is done properly, The Mystery of Irma Vep – Charles Ludlam’s takeoff on Victorian melodramas – is an absolute gas. Happily, the Seven Angels production, offers deft direction by Owen Thompson and top drawer performances by Marc Geller and Tom Souhrada. Bolstered by first class sets, sound, lighting and costumes, this version (and I’ve seen a few) is about as good as it gets.

The founder of New York’s Ridiculous Theater Company, Mr Ludlam created Irma Vep in 1984 as a spoof of Vampire and Werewolf stories, Egyptian tomb mysteries, and Gothic romances set in lonely country houses, surrounded by misty wastelands.

The gimmick and continual running joke is that all the roles, male and female, were written to be played by just two men, who disappear through one door only to return in moments through another, using wigs, makeup, voices, accents and costume changes to become someone totally different. The logistics and split-second timing required to pull this off are a real challenge, and explains why the production team lists seven “dressers” to keep the two performers looking their parts.

As the story goes, all is not well in stately Mandacrest on the Moors, where the marriage of Lord Edgar Hillcrest, renowned Egyptologist, and his new second wife, Lady Enid, is plagued by vague but worrisome hints of unease: The mantelpiece portrait of Lord Edgar’s deceased first wife, Irma Vep,  seems to follow people with its eyes. Wolves howl outside. The two servants – fluttery Jane Twisden and sulky, embittered Nicodemus Underwood (who has a wooden leg and quotes Shakespeare a lot) – make secretive references to tragedies that occurred out on the moors. And then there are werewolves…

Meanwhile, Lord Edgar is distracted by painful emotions that cause him to insist that for the time being, he and Lady Enid live in a chaste, brother-sister relationship. When she turns for guidance to Jane Twisden, the housekeeper gives her very bad advice indeed.

When Lord Edgar goes to Egypt in search of relief for his anxieties, a slippery guide takes him to a mysterious tomb, where he apparently finds a 3,000-year old mummified princess, waiting to return to life… and when he brings the sarcophagus back to Mandacrest, well…

The production is filled with visual, musical and literary in-jokes. The more you recognize, the more fun it is.

While in Egypt, trudging across the desert to the theme music of Lawrence of Arabia, Lord Edgar is dressed as Indiana Jones. There are throwaway references to Oscar Wilde, Ibsen, Poe, Jane Eyre, Dracula and the Mummy’s Curse, to name a few.  At one point the love between Edgar and Enid is expressed by the soundtrack from Titanic, and suddenly the two are standing on the deck of an oceanliner, moving slowly across the stage.

In one tour de force scene, Nicodemus and Lady Enid (both played by Marc Geller) have a highly emotional conversation just outside the French doors, where the audience can hear them both talking, and see first one, then the other, as they hug, until finally one arm becomes a hairy groping paw…

The show is campy, droll and hilarious, keeping the audience laughing from beginning to end, which is what it was meant to do.

(Performances continue Thursdays through Saturday evenings, and on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons, until December 3.

Seven Angels Theatre, in Hamilton Park on Plank Road in Waterbury, can be reached by calling 203-757-4676.)