Charles Ludlam’s frenetic farce “The Mystery of Irma Vep” epitomizes the legendary theatermaker’s penchant for scrambling high-camp theatrics, outlandishly over-the-top storytelling, and a transgressive bawdiness. A delirious parody of macabre Victorian-era “penny dreadfuls,” gothic thrillers like Daphne Du Maurier’s “Rebecca” and Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” and old Hollywood horror films like “The Mummy” and “The Wolf Man,” the play functions as both an anarchic spoof and a riotous celebration of those cultural inspirations.
Running at Central Square Theater from May 28-June 21, “Irma Vep” has also never been a production for the faint of heart, pushing actors, directors, and stagehands to their limits. With only two performers playing every role, “Irma Vep” is, in its best incarnations, a tour-de-force showcase of lightning-quick costume changes that have your head spinning like an inebriated cruise ship passenger.
At Central Square, the chameleonic Paul Melendy, known for his expressive physicality, will be performing in the show alongside the equally go-for-broke Gabriel Graetz. The two played a jigsaw-puzzle-obsessed man and the parrot that waged war on him in “Featherbaby” at Greater Boston Stage last fall. Now, they’re embodying a slew of eccentrics together in “Irma Vep.”
Not only must the actors create a multitude of characters, with distinct mannerisms and vocal inflections, but they must pull off the high-wire act of more than 30 whirlwind costume changes over the course of the show.
David R. Gammons, who’s directing the play, says that Ludlam was “celebrating the magic and the power of transformation at the heart of why we do this art form and why we come to the theater. He just accelerates that process to delight, amaze, and confound, even. There’s a sense of, how did that even happen? How did you accomplish that full change?”
Graetz likens it to a slightly more sophisticated form of playing make-believe. “It’s almost like little kids playing dress-up. What do you need to be a pirate? You don’t need much,” he says. “Can we beguile and enchant them into a sort of wonder?”
That beguiling unfolds on an English country estate, Mandacrest, home of the Hillcrests, that’s haunted by various ghosts from the past, including haughty Lord Edgar’s (Graetz) beloved deceased wife Lady Irma, whose portrait hangs over the mantelpiece. Edgar’s anxious new wife, Edith (Melendy), a former actress, is still adjusting to her role as the lady of the manor. Sarcastic maid Jane is openly skeptical that she’ll measure up and, later, reveals some long-buried secrets, while rickety old groundskeeper Nicodemus is attacked by a ravenous wolf on the moors. Apparitions appear and monsters skulk about, and Lord Edgar even journeys on an expedition to Egypt to find a mummy’s tomb.
Seth Bodie, the show’s costume designer, has sewn the outfits together as mostly all-in-one pieces. To fasten the garments, he uses Velcro, single zippers, snaps, and even magnets. Each wig is attached onto its own helmet and ties around the actors’ chins to make for easy removal. Form-fitting costumes are layered underneath the larger garments. To keep the actors from overheating under all the layers, Bodie has sewn pockets into the costumes to hide gelled ice packs. Bodie drew on many of the tricks of the quick-change trade that he learned while working for years at Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals.
Working backstage within or between scenes, Melendy and Graetz have only 10-15 seconds, or less, to dive into their disguises. “Some of the changes have to be almost instantaneous,” Graetz says. “The challenge will be establishing muscle memory.”
Two assistant stage managers will assist them behind the scenes, sometimes handing props through doors. “As you go off stage, you take off the wig, give that to somebody,” Melendy says. “Someone else will hand you the other wig. You tie that on, while a stagehand is thrusting your arms into another costume and Velcro-ing you in. Hopefully the more we do it, the easier it gets, and then we’ll sort of be on autopilot.”
For the first day working on set, the fasteners were still being debated. Magnets are “risky,” Melendy says, because “they can come apart easily, and lining them up could take time.” Velcro might seem like the quickest, “but it’s also the loudest,” he says.
The team is also experimenting with cheeky moments that acknowledge the artifice. “When do things go awry?” Gammons says. “Maybe someone comes in, for instance, and their wig is on backwards. We’re looking for those gestures that have a meta-theatrical twist.”
The whiplash-inducing costume-changes serve as the driving force of the play’s madcap energy. For Gammons, that meant creating an all-white, jewel-box scenic design, with two doors, a fireplace, a couple of chairs, several props, and a few surprises. The idea is to focus the spotlight on the colorful, extravagant costumes. The tight playing space, Gammons says, creates a combustible quality to the manic proceedings. “I wanted something that felt like it was very contained, that all of the energy and madness and wildness of this play is captured and magnified within this box.”
With the costumes, Bodie and Gammons weren’t going for a strictly Victorian, high-bustle look. Instead, they drew inspiration from the 1940s and ’80s, but done “in a grand style … dumpster diving at Bob Mackie’s,” Bodie jokes.
The actors embrace the opportunity to turn their faces as rubbery as Play-Doh and chew scenery like rabid dogs, and there’s an almost Scooby-Doo quality to the hijinks, plot twists, and unmasking of villains. “We’ve been laughing that the play actually works really well for a 14-year-old’s sense of humor,” Gammons says. “It’s a lot of sex jokes and absurdity.”
Still, the frenzied slapstick masks darker undercurrents, Gammons points out. “The horror tropes that Ludlam is playing with — the vampires, werewolves, and mummies — speak to our fear of death and this desire in some way to defeat death.”
Indeed, when Ludlam and Everett Quinton, his creative and life partner, premiered “Irma Vep” in 1984, the growing AIDS crisis was threatening the gay community. Ludlam, an experimental theater pioneer and founder of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, died of the disease in 1987. “It’s hard not to see that he’s talking indirectly about a particular horror that’s surrounding him and the queer artists in New York City at that time.”
Yet Gammons marvels that Ludlam’s “response to the nightmare of the AIDS crisis is not to write a play that’s overly somber or outraged. Instead, he writes a play that is outrageous and hilarious and over the top and full of joy. It’s a celebration of life as a way of navigating that dark moment.”
And despite the fast-flying Rolodex of cultural references and Easter eggs woven throughout the show, “Irma Vep” remains “pure entertainment,” Gammons says. “[Ludlam] never lets his intelligence, his politics, or anything get in the way of entertaining the audience. That’s always job one — to make the audience laugh, make them gasp, keep them on the edge of their seats.”
THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP
By Charles Ludlam, presented by Central Square Theater, May 28-June 21. Tickets from $25. 617-576-9278, www.CentralSquareTheater.org