Charles Ludlam was an icon of queer theater. The actor-writer’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company—a spin-off from the Play-House of the Ridiculous, established in 1965 by Warhol protege Ronald Tavel—specialized in genderfuck, where men dress as women with little effort to disguise their maleness. In shows like Turds in Hell, Whores of Babylon, and Eunuchs of the Forbidden City, the Ridiculous used bad drag and broad overacting to attack convention and celebrate what Ludlam called “the deviant and the original.”
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Today Ludlam’s biggest hit, The Mystery of Irma Vep, is a staple of regional theater. Penned as a vehicle for Ludlam and his longtime lover, Everett Quinton, and premiered in 1984—three years before Ludlam’s death from AIDS at age 44—it’s a burlesque of gothic horror that appeals to mainstream theatergoers as well as fringe theater fans. Although relatively tame by the standards of Ludlam’s earlier work, it still lives up to Tavel’s two-sentence manifesto: “We have passed beyond the Absurd. Our position is completely Ridiculous.”
Obviously, the play makes little attempt at credibility or even coherence. The ludicrously overplotted narrative is just an excuse for over-the-top acting and a nonstop barrage of pop-culture and highbrow allusions (including some hilariously mangled snippets from Shakespeare, Poe, and Wilde). In this Court Theatre production, director Sean Graney amplifies Ludlam’s campy double entendres and groaner puns with lewd sight gags, gross-out bits, and an especially clever piece of shtick that satirizes his own penchant for putting audiences in the middle of his shows. Graney’s previous assignment at Court, Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw, was also the work of a subversive queer writer. This production is equally creative—and raunchy—but a lot more tightly coordinated.
