EVENINGS OUT

MARCH 24, 1995 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 21

Gay camp classic wilts in a straight production

The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam Cleveland Play House

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

The late Charles Ludlam's play The Mystery of Irma Vep is a masterpiece of queer theatre. Ludlam's parody of the gothic romance genre is played as high camp and is

packed with arcane literary and theatrical references. Two men play all the parts, male and female, as well as assorted vampires, werewolves and mummies.

The Cleveland Play House production of The Mystery of Irma Vep is a moderately amusing but sadly misguided affair that seems to acknowledge queerness but refuses to embrace it. Director Scott Kanoff wisely cast gay playwright David Greenspan, who clearly understands the style and works valiantly throughout the evening, but the production around him is as straight as can be.

Greenspan's performance of the Ludlam roles in Irma Vep is lively and original. As the lame servant and werewolf Nicodemus Underwood, he lurches about the stage, slavering at the mouth, face distorted by a twitch: he is both monstrous and tragically in need of love. Greenspan embodies the character's duality and plays Ludlam's sense of camp parody to the hilt. He has the same perfect sense of the genre playing the oily Egyptian guide Alcazar, who will dupe the hero, Lord Edgar Hillcrest.

The most startling of Greenspan's creations is the drag role of Lady Enid Hillcrest. He models her on Sarah BernhardtLudlam recalled Ellen Terrywith a huge red pile of hair and assorted theatrical velvet gowns. He poses, preens, prances and overemotes with divaesque grandeur. Greenspan's Lady Enid perfectly captures a goofy sense of theatre tradition and the delight of doing drag that is a hallmark of Ludlam's style.

Unfortunately this understanding of the work is absent in the rest of the production.

The second actor, Richard Bekins, is bland as both Lord Edgar Hillcrest and seemed uncomfortable in drag as the maid Jane Twisden. This may well have been a choice to let him serve as a foil—straight man—to Greenspan, but if so, this is a complete misunderstanding of the play. There is no sense of the fun of invention in Bekins' work and no sense of the styles being parodied.

This same blandness is found in the staging and the designs-with the exception of David Murin's two gowns for Lady Enid. It is as though director Kanoff thought

Greenspan would be queer enough for the Play House audience and decided to staighten out the rest of the production. Or perhaps Kanoff is uncomfortable with the camp style. In any event, he successfully slowly drains the life out of the work.

In the original production, Ludlam's lover, Everett Quinton, was the second actor. The two men vied for center stage in a breathtaking and dizzying manner taking utter delight in their craft and their queerness. Only Greenspan captures this creative joy in the Play House production, and he, alone, is not enough to sustain the evening.

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