'Irma Vep': Arena Over-Polishes A Rough Gem

The beep-beep-beep of a large vehicle in reverse gets a good laugh in Arena Stage's "The Mystery of Irma Vep," Charles Ludlam's madcap B-movie sendup. That sound accompanies the spectacle of Brad Oscar -- in a dress the size of a Buick -- backing up as his plus-size Lady Enid Hillcrest tries to make a graceful exit.

Hold that image: It's fully in the spirit of cheap fun that governs "Irma Vep," a loopy tale -- for two quick-changing actors -- of haunted spirits and vampires that also manages to friskily gloss Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. The comedy was the biggest hit the prolific Ludlam ever had with the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, a chronically struggling outfit that he ran in Manhattan until his early death in 1987.

But that snapshot also sums up the grinning ungainliness that keeps this "Vep" from fully blasting off. Arena's production, tucked behind a new crimson proscenium arch in the company's temporary quarters in Crystal City, is thoroughly capable but seldom delectable. It's like watching the institutional version of an underground treat. The show smacks of overproduction right from the top, with spinning, melting projected titles hawking the event like a 1940s movie trailer (irresistible, perhaps, in this former film theater). But things look up as the curtain parts and reveals James Noone's gray-toned set, with footlights casting long shadows in Daniel MacLean Wagner's design. Enter J. Fred Shiffman as the severe maidservant Jane Twisden, sniping about how gauche the new lady of the manse at Mandacrest is, and we're primed for a high old time.

It's Hitchcock's "Rebecca," at least for starters. Irma Vep is dead, and her portrait hangs above the mantel. (Naturally, the painting sometimes seems . . . alive!) Lord Edgar (Shiffman, in plaid knickers) is now married to Lady Enid (Oscar, in a series of exaggerated gowns). But something's amiss, as Jane says in low tones to the stableman Nicodemus (Oscar, in a gray fright wig). Something to do with wolves. And what the heck, with mummies, too.

Director Rebecca Bayla Taichman and the actors manage the quick changes seamlessly, and the gimmick is front and center pretty much all the time. Note the beige linings that wig designer T. Tyler Stumpf doesn't try terribly hard to hide as, say, Oscar goes from Nicodemus's shock of gray to Lady Enid's red curls. And the script is rife with winks and nods, as Jane explains to Enid that she can't see Nicodemus just now -- "For obvious reasons," she declares broadly.

You have to admire the actors' command of Ludlam's lovingly campy language as the characters natter on about the ghouls on the heath and the moor and the crude glyphs in the mummy's crypt. As Jane, Shiffman actually says, "Harrumph!," and the word has real zing. Playing an Egyptian guide named Alcazar, Oscar relishes a chance to itemize ancient treasures that include gems formed "from the urine of lynxes."

But as Oscar's Alcazar madly rolls his r's, it begins to seem that the actor's attack from role to role is all gale force, with too few soft breezes. Oscar's bits are broad, and they land hard; see the nervous Enid's stash of jumbo Hershey bars, for instance, and her sequence of domineering gowns that practically demand their own entrance music (and at least one special exit). Shiffman gets neater business, whether it's Edgar's precious hopeful shimmying as he acts out Egyptian clues, or the extravagantly snippy way Jane plucks at her dulcimer.

Taichman, one of the cleverest directors on the local scene, matches Ludlam's literate irreverence with pop culture darts of her own. She keys gags to "Gone With the Wind" and even "Law & Order," and she lets costume designer David Zinn run particularly wild in Egypt.

So there is fun to be had, yet an aura of mismatch fogs the evening, as the show's too richly done for this happy little farce's make-do premise. And by the time a subversive lark like "Vep" makes it to a theater like Arena, the joke is stale. In his manifesto on Ridiculous Theater, Ludlam, writing from a position of poverty (he even designed his own sets), advocated for "theater without the stink of art." Arena can't help it: They let the art in.

The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam. Directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman. Sound design, Bray Poor; fight director, David S. Leong; choreographer, Parker Esse. Through July 13 at Arena Stage Crystal City, 1800 S. Bell St., Arlington. Call 202-488-3300 or visit www.arenastage.org