2 Player Cast Solves ‘Mystery of Irma Vep’ With Fun, Games

It reads like a page from a parodist’s cookbook. Blend hunks of “Rebecca,” “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” with snippets of B-horror movies in a blender, then separate into seven male and female roles. Now give two actors the job of quickly moving among all these parts, sprinkle generously with tromp de l’oeil and serve immediately with an assortment of puns and hot double entendre s.

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The resulting delicious slice of madness is “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” one of the most successful ventures of the late Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company.

Last year, when Ludlam, who also worked as the playwright, director, designer and actor of the company he founded in 1967, died of AIDS, the question that lingered was whether the charm of the work could outlive the charisma of the man. The San Diego premiere of “Irma Vep” now playing at the San Diego Repertory Theatre through June 11 provides enough fun to prove that it can, although not quite enough to keep one from longing for another, more satisfying version.

To pull off the confection’s complications requires a team of two who are truly a team. Ludlam and his longtime comic partner and companion Everett Quinton may have done the roles first, but one can readily imagine the shoes being admirably filled by others on the order of the old Dudley Moore, Peter Cook “Good Evening” combination.

Both Jeffrey Allan Chandler and Don Sparks deserve kudos for the marathon, sweat-inducing challenges of the quick changes, one of which is so swift that as Chandler moves from one side to the other he moves from the lovely, fluttery, golden-tressed Lady Enid Hillcrest to the crippled Heathcliffe-like servant, Nicodemus Underwood.

It’s a pleasurable tour-de-force even if isn’t the first time such a trick has been played on local audiences; Kandis Chappell and William Anton showed how well it could be done when each played a variety of roles in Alan Ayckbourn’s two-person play, “Intimate Exchanges” at the Old Globe Theatre last season.

The problem is that despite their individual skills, Chandler and Sparks are no “Sunshine Boys.” They don’t have the give and take that comes from long and barbed association and Will Roberson’s direction never quite brings them in synch.

Chandler is, by himself, wonderfully campy and seems totally in the spirit of the larger-than-life aspects of the piece. Put his Lady Enid and Nicodemus together with a mysterious Egyptian guide, Alcazar, and a bare-breasted, well (if fakely) endowed Egyptian princess (wonderful costumes by Nancy Jo Smith), and you’ve got a stage-eating presence to be reckoned with.

But he does not strike sparks with the more restrained Sparks who nibbles rather than bites into the juicy centers of his roles. His work seems overpowered by rather than complementary to Chandler’s work. His Lord Edgar Hillcrest offers blandness where one longs for Rochester-like blackness. And as the secretive maid, Jane Twisden, he delivers dead-pan Monty Pythonesque dourness, where a melodramatic hand rubbing ominousness seems called for. But his energy does pick up in the second act, suggesting that he may grow into his parts over the course of the run.

The caricature-like sets by Mark Donnelly move with yeomen-like skill from a detailed, draped Victorian living room to a hieroglyphic-panelled Egyptian tomb, but like the production as a whole, are not quite as funny as they should be. The garish lighting by Kent Dorsey is effective as well as the frequent cracks of thunder and gunshots, coordinated by sound designer Adam Wartnik.

The lugubrious music composed by Peter Golub is effective, but not as memorable as the musical segue which begins when Lady Enid, seeing a rose, tells the maid, “Take it away, Jane” and Jane responds by picking up a ukulele and singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” That turns into one of Sparks’ best moments as the prissy, starched-collar Jane launches into “Wild Thing” and an ultimate duet with Lady Enid who beats a conga drum as they launch into “I’ve Got You, Babe.”

It’s one of the better bits in this 2 1/2-hour joke, one of a plethora of topical and classical asides (ranging from Shirley MacLaine to Clint Eastwood, Edgar Allan Poe and Shakespeare) that demonstrate how impossible it is to emerge from this comic descent without a few laughs. It’s just disappointing that this particular production doesn’t deliver quite as many as it promises.

“THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP”

By Charles Ludlam. Director is Will Roberson. Sets by Mark Donnelly. Costumes by Nancy Jo Smith. Lighting by Kent Dorsey. Sound by Adam Wartnik. Music composed by Peter Golub. Stage manager is Hollie Hopson. With Don Sparks and Jeffrey Allan Chandler. At 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., through June 11. At the San Diego Repertory Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego.