Preface

            When the Theatre Roundtable was kind enough to offer their website as a venue for my theatre reviews they were clear that the offer came with no restrictions, that I was free to review any company I chose.  They did indicate that member companies hoped I would try to review some of them as many had been neglected by area critics in the past.

            I decided at the beginning it was only fair, since the reviews were to be on their site, to focus on reviewing current Roundtable member companies.  This had me not reviewing some major companies in town I had covered for years.  I have stuck to that for my first nine months here. This review is the only one that does not follow that stipulation and I’d like to explain why.

            The first production I ever reviewed as a professional theatre critic was at The Contemporary American Theatre Company (“Women of My Father’s House,” March 1989).  I have always had a soft spot in my heart for CATCO.  I started seeing them just a few years after their inception and followed them for over twenty years.  From their Park Street Theatre to the Riffe Center they have been the predominant central Ohio theatre company for the past generation.

            CATCO remains, but this is the final season in its present form and with many of its present players. No longer with the company will be Founder and Artistic Director Geoffrey Nelson and Associate Artistic Director Jonathan Putnam. I know I’m on the outside looking in and am to review theatre productions not corporate decisions, but this seems incomprehensible to me.

            Officially, Geoff is referred to as CATCO co-founder but I’ve been around the last 21 years and have never met the other one.   CATCO was Geoff’s baby, he nurtured it through growing pains and growing successes as well as acting and directing in countless memorable productions. Jon has been a company member for the past twenty years, teaching as well as vividly acting and directing.  Together they are not only the face of CATCO, but the heart and soul as well.

            Ironically, their season ending production had been chosen and cast before any of these internal shiftings occurred.  As it turned out, that played out nicely.

            The final production of the final season of CATCO in its present form is a revival of a production from their early years. And it is a two person play featuring Nelson and Putnam.

On a far smaller scale, it serves as a bookend for me as well.  Shortly after I began reviewing I saw CATCO’s 1990 production of “Irma Vep” that featured Nelson and Michael Harper. This was followed by twenty years of reviewing CATCO productions, each season featuring Nelson and Putnam in a variety of ways.  If this turns out to be my last CATCO review, I wanted to see Nelson and Putnam together again while it was still their company.

Yes, CATCO will go on and hopefully flourish.  And we have not seen the last of Nelson and Putnam, not even at CATCO.  But it won’t be the same.

                                                                                    Dennis Thompson

             Review of The Mystery of Irma Vep:  A Penny Dreadful

   by Dennis Thompson

 The Contemporary American Theatre Company closes its season with Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful.

It is described as a satire of several theatrical and film genres, including Victorian melodrama in its story and tone, farce in its use of comedy and quick exits and entrances, and the Alfred Hitchcock film Rebecca, for no apparent reason.

Ludlam and his original company took pains to note that they didn’t consider this camp, that they thought of it in more serious terms. 

But I don’t see how you can’t describe this as camp.  Wonderful, delicious, high camp.  Very serious camp.

Vep is actually a revival for CATCO, having had a successful run in 1990 with a production featuring Geoffrey Nelson and Michael Harper.  Nelson returns to the same role here, this time accompanied by Jonathan Putnam.

Set in 1927ish, the action mainly takes place at Mandacrest Estate, the home of Lord Edgar and Lady Enid.  Lady Enid is actually Lord Edgar’s second wife but he has not gotten over his first, Irma Vep, whose picture still hangs on the wall.  The household includes the stable hand Nicodemus and the maid, Jane.

The hook is the play has eight characters played by only the two actors.  Cross dressing is required and is most of the fun. Nelson’s main roles are as Lady Enid and Nicodemus, Putnam is Lord Edgar and Jane.

This is great fun, watching these two pros milk the humor, both in the script and in the costumes.  Watch as Nelson, not a small man, “gracefully” glides across the stage. Watch as both primp and preen. Listen as they ad-lib and interact with the audience. Try to stay out of the way as they jump in the seats with you and crawl around. 

CATCO is no stranger to quick change pieces having done many such shows in the past, usually involving tuna.  But the speed of the quick changes here is remarkable, so quick the audience gasps at that alone.  You’d swear there was film editing involved.

Part of the fun is the ad-libbing done to give more time for these changes.  Plus the script has been updated to add local and topical references and sight gags, none of which would apply to this period play, but are hilarious.

In fact, Directors Nelson and Jeanine Thompson ensure that everything about this is hilarious.  It seems like a hodge podge but it’s not, everything is expertly timed and executed, every detail accounted for.  Simply viewing the portrait of Nelson on the wall is funny.

My daughter, the PhD English student in the family, who accompanied me, whispered to me at one point “it really is like A Penny Dreadful.”  I stared at her blankly, having paid little attention to the subtitle I had assumed was there solely because it sounded cool.

Turns out “a penny dreadful” refers to a type of British fiction publication in the 19^th century that featured lurid serial stories that were stretched out over weeks.  The term soon came to refer to anything considered cheap sensational fiction. 

This is indeed like a penny dreadful.

The CATCO audience long familiar with the work of Nelson and Putnam eat up their reveling in these roles.  But if you’ve never seen them before in your life, if you have never had any knowledge of any of the genres being spoofed, if you don’t even know what a play is, you’ll still have a great time.

The Contemporary American Theatre Company’s The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful continues Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm through June 27th. Performances are in the Riffe Center’s Studio Two Theatre, 77 South High Street.  For more information call 469-0939.