Vamps, vexation and 'Irma Vep'

This comic spoof of ghoulish traditions - in drag, no less - sometimes disguises the playwright's heartfelt bow to classical theater.

By By John Fleming, Times Performing Arts Critic
Published July 12, 2007

Charles Ludlam always felt misunderstood by his devoted audience.

Ludlam, an actor, playwright and mastermind of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York's Greenwich Village, was a brilliant drag performer and pioneer of gay theater, yet he insisted that fans and critics missed the point when they described his theater in terms of camp.

"Even most of his hard-core fans didn't really understand or appreciate the substance behind a lot of his work," says David Kaufman, author of Ridiculous!: The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam. "They could just too easily laugh and look at the lighter, campy side."

Ludlam, who died of AIDS in 1987, was renowned for his drag performances in plays such as his adaptation of the romantic tragedy Camille and Galas, his portrayal of opera diva Maria Callas, but he is mainly remembered for his sendup of old movies and Gothic horror stories, The Mystery of Irma Vep.

He wrote it to be performed by himself and his longtime companion, Everett Quinton, playing seven different characters, including Lady Enid and Lord Edgar Hillcrest, a one-legged butler, a housekeeper with secrets and assorted demons. With only two actors and many costumes, it is a quick-change tour de force that was Ludlam's biggest hit.

"Ludlam's following always felt that nobody but Ludlam and Quinton could do that play, and it's one of the great ironies that it's now done all over the world," Kaufman says. "It's almost actor proof. Even if they goof up or go up on things or something goes wrong, that just becomes a part of the spirit."

Larry Buzzeo and Derek Baxter will test that thesis as they star in a Stageworks production of Irma Vep, directed by Karla Hartley, opening this weekend at the Shimberg Playhouse of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.

Like other Ludlam plays, Irma Vep (an anagram for "vampire") is chock full of witty references to popular films such as Rebecca, Wuthering Heights, Gaslight, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Nosferatu (the German version of Dracula), but it also has elements of classic theater.

"Almost every reference point in Irma Vep is to things from a hundred years ago," Kaufman says. "Ibsen is referenced throughout."

Though Ludlam was embraced by sophisticated, fashionable theatergoers, his strongest conviction was that, far from being an avant-garde artist, he was actually steeped in tradition.

"He hated being perceived as avant-garde, because he knew that he was just the opposite," says Kaufman, who likens Ludlam to Moliere and Shakespeare.

"He was dealing with old traditions, so old that they seemed new to most people. For example, using drag was an important component of his theater. But it doesn't have to do with being gay or even camp. It has to do with his knowledge of theater. In Elizabethan theater, female characters were all played by men. In Japanese theater, that's the tradition as well."

Irma Vep is a cross-dressing romp of the highest order, but Kaufman laments that it is produced so often, while Ludlam's 28 other plays are forgotten.

"I don't think it has the substance of a number of other plays," he says. "If Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde is not the best, it's certainly in the top five. Reverse Psychology and Caprice are both worth doing. Bluebeard is a great crowd pleaser, but it also has some interesting stuff going on about gender."

Ridiculous!, published in 2002, is a compulsively readable account of Ludlam's life, as well as a rich slice of cultural history. Now Kaufman, who lives in New York, is working on the biography of a show business icon of a very different sort, Doris Day, though he maintains that she and Ludlam had a few things in common.

"There are two similarities," says Kaufman, whose Day biography is due in 2008. "They both have cult followings. But the biggest similarity is that they both were for the most part underestimated by the culture at large. Because Doris Day made so many schlocky movies, it's overlooked that she was a really fine singer, actor and dancer."

John Fleming can be reached at (727) 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com.

The Mystery of Irma Vep
Stageworks' production of the Charles Ludlam play opens Friday and runs through July 29 at the Shimberg Playhouse of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa. There is a preview at 8 tonight. $10 preview; $24.50, with half-price student rush tickets 90 minutes before curtain. (813) 229-7827; www.stageworkstheater.com.

[Last modified July 10, 2007, 16:58:30]