‘Caprice’ Makes Attempt at Contemporary Satire

The Sacred Fools Theatre Company makes a mad dash toward irrelevance in “Caprice,” the company’s abysmal current offering at its Heliotrope space.

A sendup of the fashion industry, “Caprice” is a seriously flawed piece by the late Charles Ludlam, the eminent theatrical parodist and all-around gadfly who died of AIDS complications in 1987. For years, Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York was the prime exponent for Ludlam’s plays--campy, cross-dressing extravaganzas directed by and featuring Ludlam.

Of that canon, about 29 plays in all, the most accessible and frequently produced is “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” a “penny dreadful” homage to horror films. Ludlam was at his eccentric best when parodying Hollywood’s B-movies.

Unfortunately, “Caprice” is a confused and dated attempt at contemporary satire that utterly fails to make sense of the vanity, vapidity and decadence at the heart of the New York fashion industry. If this is a comic expose, it should cover up.

Worse, even, than this lame material is director John Altieri’s ham-handed, lead-footed and tin-eared staging, a debacle that leaves the gasping actors searching for clues. Instead of expediting the attenuated proceedings, Altieri stretches things out even more with pointless disco dances and some of the slowest line pickups this side of an opium den.

Despite amusingly ugly costumes and a few intrepid performances, most notably by Allan Hendrick and Johanna McKay as two flamboyantly acrimonious fashion mavens, this agonizingly overlong production is a punctured whoopee cushion that collapses, not with a bang, but with a slow, dispiriting hiss.

*

“Caprice,” Sacred Fools Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 17. $15. (310) 281-8337. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.