THEATER REVIEW : ‘Irma Vep’ a Campy and Flippant Romp

Charles Ludlam had a prescription for writing plays that stands originality on its head: “Steal lines. Orchestrate platitudes. Hang them on some plot you found somewhere else.”

No snob, he took whatever seemed useful from low or high sources with equal mockery. A pastiche in point is his 1987 camp comedy, “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” which commits armed robbery on old horror movies, pulp fiction and classic literature.

The show, making its debut in the Los Angeles area, opened over the weekend in teasing, flippant style at the Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater. Ron Campbell and Anthony Forkush play all of its quick-change roles, women and men both, with lunatic zeal and sharp comic dexterity.

“Irma Vep” hijacks its main scenario from the Gothic thriller “Rebecca,” and swipes moody details from “Wuthering Heights.” A widowed British nobleman brings his second wife home to Mandacrest, where the memory of his first wife casts a shadow over the household’s two servants and a lone wolf who howls on the heath in the dead of night.

The play also rifles “The Mummy” for a subplot about reincarnated lovers, burgles “The Wolf Man” for a lonely werewolf and filches wisecracks from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Francois Villon.

Oddly--despite the parodistic glee of Ludlam’s imagination, the wicked accuracy of the performers’ caricatures and the unflagging speed of their whizz-bang costume changes--the production takes the whole first act to build sustained comic momentum. But once it gains traction in the second, when the antic machinery seems most inspired, it’s flat-out funny.

Both actors exhaust the ridiculous. Campbell does the servant Jane with imperious vulgarity and unstinting British intonation. Forkush’s Lady Enid, the new wife of Lord Edgar, flutters like a vain coquette primping under her blond tresses. The pair also offer quaint songs in warbling falsetto.

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Many of the best moments involve sight gags to amplify the outlandish. Campbell, as Lord Edgar on safari in his pith helmet, gazes into the distance through a view finder: “Ah Egypt! It looks exactly as I pictured it!” Forkush goes from old stiff mummy to undulating belly dancer by a magic invocation: “Cairo! Cairo! Practor!”

Groan if you must. “Irma Vep” revels in that sort of humor. Meanwhile, director Jules Aaron relishes the chance to apply an affectionate overlay of music-hall manner and tacky props.

* “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Rd., Laguna Beach. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. Ends June 19. $16-$20. (714) 494-8021. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

A Laguna Playhouse production of a play by Charles Ludlam. Directed by Jules Aaron. Set design by Don Gruber. Costume design by Michael Pacciorini. Lighting design by Paulie Jenkins. Sound design by David Edwards. Stage Manager: Rita Butler.