Theater Review: ‘Irma Vep’ an evening of silliness

By BARBARA GREILING/For the News & Messenger
Published: June 19, 2008

Summer is the time for camp, and Arena Stage has high camp: its production of "The Mystery of Irma Vep." The peripatetic farce features men dressed as women, men dressed as vampires and werewolves, and even a man dressed as a woman posing as a reanimated mummy.

The men in question are Arena veterans Brad Oscar and J. Fred Shiffman, who've taken on the play's seven comic characters, which is exactly what the late playwright Charles Ludlum had in mind. He and his partner Everett Quinton did the same in the original 1984 produc-tion at his Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York.

Ludlum's creation, which borrows with abandon from such varied literary sources as Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca" and Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights," also draws on Victorian melodrama, a long line of horror movies such as "The Mummy's Curse" and "Dracula. There's even a hint of "Gone with the Wind" and "Deliverance," in this lively production directed by Rebecca Bayla Tachman.

There's little plot to speak of here; instead the "Irma" is a long series of crazy send-ups of familiar stage, movie and literary traditions.

As thunder roars and lightning flashes, the audience learns that Lord Edgar Hillcrest has brought his new bride Lady Enid to his isolated estate on the eerie moors. But dour housekeeper Jane Twisden (Shiffman) proclaims that the new Lady Hillcrest will never hold a candle to the late Lady Irma. Enid is after all, horror of horrors, an actress! Peg-legged swineherd Nicodemus Underwood (Oscar) is more willing to give Lady Enid a chance. Then again, Nicodemus is willing to give even the forbidding Jane a chance. But Jane soon sends him packing, paving the way for Lady Enid (Oscar again) to glide into the room draped in a gown that costume designer David Zinn has packed with an overabundance ruffles, and it takes a lot ruffles to cover Oscar's ample frame. Enid in her vivid red ensemble stands in stark contrast to set designer James Noone's gray drawing room dominated by uncannily lifelike portrait of Irma.

The rather dim-witted Enid—who bears a striking resemblance to Nathan Lane in "The Bird Cage"—proves a rapt audience for Jane's tales of the tragic Irma, the Hillcrests' lost son and the wolf that roams the moors mourning the late mistress of Mandercrest.

Hunting has become an obsession for Lord Edgar since Irma death, Jane reports, and soon his lordship (Shiffman) enters with a wolf carcass in tow. That should end the haunted howling on the moors and restore peace. But no, it's the wrong wolf and there's more than a wolf lurking here.

Attempting to put Irma in the past, Enid persuades Lord Edgar to put away his first wife's mesmerizing portrait and look to his future with his new bride. But, of course, eerie events intervene and disturb their domestic tranquility.

With Enid safely stashed away in a rest home recovering from said eerie events, Lord Edgar, an Egyptologist as well as a hunter, travels to the Valley of the Kings, where with the help of guide Alcazar (Oscar) he makes a startling discovery about the mummy Pev Amri (Oscar again). Back at Mandercrest, with the mummy's sarcophagus ensconced in the drawing room, Enid stumbles upon the solution to "The Mystery of Irma Vep." Along the way, there are plenty of quick changes, near misses, revelations and even more improbable costumes.

In one scene, Jane persuades Enid to wear a gown the housekeeper claims is "full of nos-talgia." "We can have it cleaned," Enid replies helpfully before reappearing in a huge picture hat and a black-and-white-striped parody of the gown that Scarlett wore on the ve-randah at Tara. Indeed, the fabric for this striped monstrosity could tent the verandah at Tara.

Oscar and Shiffman appear to be having a fine time with this celebration of lunacy. Oscar delights as the ditzy Lady Enid.

Shiffman's Jane and Edgar are less flamboyant, although the expedition to Egypt—where he cuts a rug with the mummy—reveals Edgar's wilder side.

Oscar's Nicodemus has a decidedly poetic bent for a swineherd. He's given to dramatic soliloquies—which frequently provide the opportunity for Shiffman to switch characters. At one point, Nicodemus even channels Edith Piaf, complete with a red rose in his flyway gray wig.

The lightning fast changes are the basis for many of the jokes. When Enid demands to see Nico-demus, Jane insists that is not possible "for obvious reasons." "I often feel Nicodemus and I are the same person," Enid then muses.

But later Enid and Nicodemus do have an encounter on the terrace—a dazzling bit of physical comedy from Oscar with the help of a crack backstage staff.

"The Mystery of Irma Vep" is perfect summer entertainment—an evening of sheer silliness that demands no more of the audience than laughter.

WANT TO GO?

What's up: "The Mystery of Irma Vep"

Where: Arena Stage in Crystal City, 18000 S. Bell St. Arlington

Tickets: $47-$60

Contact: 202-488-3300, Arenastage.org