Theater Turns to Author’s Friends to Solve a Mystery

Thomas Vegh, artistic director of Diversionary Theatre, did not drop his plans to produce the late Charles Ludlam’s “The Mystery of Irma Vep” this summer simply because the San Diego Repertory Theatre had the property on its schedule first. The problem, according to Vegh, was the expectation that the Rep’s “Vep,” a farcical, quick-change takeoff on Gothic romance and horror genres, would be an extended hit that would still be running when Vegh was ready to open his version.

Most “Vep” productions, which have spread from New York to Chicago to Toronto to Norway, have been extended hits, according to Steven Samuels, the general manager of the 21-year-old Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York where Ludlam was producer, writer, star, director and set and light designer before he died of AIDS last year. There is even a version in Rio de Janeiro, translated by Manuel “The Kiss of the Spider Woman” Puig and directed by the Brazilian actress Sonia Braga, that is still playing after two years.

So Vegh talked to Everett Quinton, the artistic director of The Ridiculous who had been Ludlam’s lover and co-star in “Vep” and most of the rest of the 30-odd plays of Ludlam’s canon. Quinton convinced Vegh to substitute “Stage Blood,” a comic mystery romp about a theatrical company that Ludlam wrote in 1974.

Vegh never got to see the Rep’s “Vep,” which closed quietly on schedule, but he is taking no chances with his interpretation. He got Samuels, a 9-year veteran of The Ridiculous, to fly out to advise him during the production, which opens Thursday and will play through Aug. 7 at the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre in Balboa Park.

Advising a production of a Ludlam play could not be closer to the heart of Samuels.

“I was Charles’ amanuensis and sounding board,” said Samuels, who is also an actor and playwright. “He dictated most of his plays to me. I got to spend a lot of time at his feet and listen to him babble in the mirror as he turned himself into Scrooge (and other characters). We had a very close personal relationship.”

The relationship is one Vegh and others have questioned Samuels about. Ludlam was so openly gay that Samuels describes him as being “born without a closet.” Samuels is heterosexual, married to actress Beth Phillips, and the father of a 7-year-old boy, Adrian.

“People have a misconception of The Ridiculous as a gay theater,” Samuels said. “It was not intended as a gay theater or to be specifically for a gay public just because a gay man decided to write for the ages. Charles’ liberated self-image extended to everyone he knew. He didn’t want everyone to be gay, he wanted everyone to find themselves and be happy with who they were. If the interests of Charles and The Ridiculous were so narrow that they did not include the majority of the public, I would not have been so interested for so long.”

Neither, he suggested, would Lily Tomlin, Bette Midler or the “Saturday Night Live” crew that asked him to direct the original NBC series. To this day, Samuels said, Bill Murray is the single largest contributor to The Ridiculous, which he has been for the last four to five years. One of the elements that make Ludlam’s spoofs so appealing is their breadth, Samuels said.

“When you pick up a volume of Charles Ludlam’s work, you will be traveling centuries, from ancient Carthage to the far distant future. There’s love, politics, money, murder and strange sexual desires. He thought of himself as a cultural recycler. He saw that a great deal in the culture was getting lost. Charles was always a champion of the rejected. It was his personal life. He was rejected by his father for being openly gay.”

In the last couple of years of Ludlam’s life, he was inching ever closer to mainstream success. He appeared in “The Big Easy” and in an episode of “Miami Vice.” Joseph Papp had invited him to stage “Titus Andronicus” at the Delacorte Theatre. He didn’t live long enough to take the job.

It’s been 10 years since the last Ludlam work before “Vep” played in San Diego--The Ridiculous’ touring version of “Stage Blood” at UC San Diego. But this year the opening of “Stage Blood” will mark two Ludlam plays in rapid succession. That, Samuels hopes, will be the way of the future for Ludlam’s work.

In the spring, Harper & Row plans to publish the first bound copy of Ludlam’s plays, which Samuels is now editing. That will make the work more accessible to theater troupes around the country. Then too, theater groups won’t have to face Ludlam’s fears that other productions would rob him of what he called his “treasure trove.”

One of the challenges of putting out a volume of Ludlam plays is that some were continually changing, some were in fragments and some, like the last one he was working on, “Houdini,” were never finished. Samuels winced when asked about “Houdini”; he didn’t know that when Ludlam was working on it, he was dying.

“He perceived of Houdini’s life as a metaphysical tragedy,” Samuels said. “He was the ultimate escape artist who wanted to escape death. And this interested Charles for what would become obvious reasons.”

Losing the 44-year-old Ludlam was so painful, Samuels said, that he still has not been able to make himself see “The Big Easy,” which came out after Ludlam’s death.

“It was brutal. You don’t lose your best friend every day. You don’t lose your master every day. You don’t lose them both at once. I loved him. The only thing I can be grateful for is that he was so productive and started rather young. So, despite dying at an absurdly early age, he left behind a complete body of work. It’s a lifetime of plays for most people.”