With 2, You Get 8 Roles of ‘Irma’ Delight

Lunt and Fontanne. Cronyn and Tandy. Fleck and Abatemarco.

That’s John Fleck and Tony Abatemarco, and you can add them to the list of gloriously memorable stage couples because the magic they make together in “The Mystery of Irma Vep” is rapturously, operatically and fantastically funny.

“Irma Vep” is to a drag show what “Hamlet” is to a murder mystery. This two-actor, eight-character play, a valentine to the theater and to movie melodrama, was originally written, performed and directed by Charles Ludlam in New York in 1984, only three years before his death at age 44. Its dizzying mix of parody, homage, subversive cultural commentary and quick-change artistry established Ludlam’s name in the world of off-Broadway, where he had long been toiling. This new “Irma”--impeccably directed by Randee Trabitz and produced at the Tiffany Theater--makes it clear that Ludlam built “Irma” to last, to outlive the formerly definitive version featuring the playwright and his longtime partner, Everett Quinton.

Opening on a dark and stormy night at Mandacrest manor, a house suspiciously like the one in “Rebecca,” “Irma Vep” is a takeoff not only on the Hitchcock classic and any British film involving a werewolf, vampire or Egyptian mummy, but also on the type of B-movie in which neither the actors nor anyone connected with the project seems to be even slightly aware of the heaving sexual subtexts. Ludlam and his actors luxuriate in this special kind of movie obliviousness. When Abatemarco, as a sinister Egyptian guide, pronounces the word “sarcophagus,” or even “tomb,” be prepared to bust a gut.

But parody, hilarious though it may be, is not “Irma Vep’s” trump card. Ludlam carefully fashioned a play in which he gave his actors exactly enough time--and not a hairsbreadth more--to exit, make a lightning-fast change and reenter the scene straight-faced as someone else a moment later. This trick never, ever gets tired, despite its constant employment, thanks to Ludlam’s delicious writing and the infinite variety with which these two wonderful and seemingly inexhaustible actors carry it off.

Fleck begins as Jane Twisden, the gloriously sour housekeeper at Mandacrest, an iron maiden who keeps watch over all the odd goings-on, especially anything having to do with the hideous portrait of her dead mistress on the mantel. Jane exits to fetch dinner and enters two beats later as the man of the house, Lord Edgar, dragging in an anatomically correct wolf carcass that he apparently had just bagged. His wife, Lady Enid, is played by Abatemarco, all golden curls, frilly dress and pinky biting until she exits to see about dinner and enters one beat later as Nicodemus, the club-footed groundskeeper at Mandacrest.

Ludlam’s lines are so delectable, and the acting so invested, that time after time we forget to watch for the next change because we become so entranced in the delirious way that, say, Fleck’s Jane Twisden scans the room for the source of a disturbing odor. Both men entertain so thoroughly that it’s even possible to forget Abatemarco’s almost alarming resemblance to Charles Ludlam.

Christina Wright’s costumes, Ken Booth’s lighting and the sets by Deborah Raymond and Dorian Vernacchio all helped make Ludlam’s distinction between the merely silly and the grandly ridiculous.

Even as it revels in silliness, “The Mystery of Irma Vep” transcends mere camp. This dizzying play is in fact an examination of what theater is about; it remains in continuous awe of its mechanisms. However many laughs it earns, “The Mystery of Irma Vep” is also a deeply humble bow to theater art and how its illusions are created.

* “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” Tiffany Theater, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. Ends March 22. $24-$27. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.