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| Lola Pashalinski, Charles Ludlam. |
"In Lieu of Reviews"
For background on how this previously
unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and
1975—came to be and its relationship to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New
York play, musical, revue, and revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the
prefaces to any of the earlier entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the
list at the end of the current entry.
BLUEBEARD [Comedy/Sci-Fi/Sex]
A/D: Charles Ludlam; C: Mary Brecht, Arthur Brady, Bobjack Callejo, Mario
Montez; P: The Ridiculous Theatrical Company; T; Evergreen Theatre (OB);
4/18/75-6/29/75 (53)
Charles
Ludlam’s campy plays often parodied old movies. Bluebeard was a ripe example. After various Off-Off-Broadway
stagings, it was incarnated Off Broadway when Ludlam’s troupe obtained its own
theatre. The film spoofed was the 1932 The
Island of Lost Souls, a chiller based on H.G. Wells’s 1896 novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau, later made
into other films as well. Whereas the original work was about a mad scientist
struggling to turn captured beasts into human beings, Bluebeard depicted Baron Khanazar von Bluebeard (Ludlam) capturing
nubile women and attempting, without much luck, to graft a “third genital” on
them.
Bluebeard
lives in a creepily Gothic lair shared by a deaf housekeeper, Mrs. Maggot (Jack
Mallory), played in drag; a butler (John D. Brockmeyer), and a serpent named
Larry. The lot centers on the events that transpire when Bluebeard’s niece
(Black-Eyed Susan), her fiancée (Bill Vehr), and her chaperone (Lola
Pashalinski) arrive at the island.
The
language, characters, and events of the comedy were presented in a broad,
campy, burlesque style. There was, typically, for Ludlam’s farces, a
transvestite character played by Mario Montez. The piece was recommended to
fans of the Ludlam oeuvre by Clive Barnes: “this is all raucous fun . . . with
a precious smidgen of finesse.” Joseph Mancini noted: “It is really three acts
of spectacle that vivisect with nihilistic fervor not only the organs of all
sexual preferences, but also the tissue of the theatre itself.”
Previous entries:
Abelard and
Heloise
Absurd Person
Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats”
and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came
Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon
Drinks a Little
And They Put
Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little
Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green
Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The Au Pair Man
Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training oAf Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half-Shell Revue
Black Girl
Black Light Theatre of Prague
Black Picture Show
Black Sunlight
The Black Terror
Black Visions
Les Blancs
Blasts and Bravos: An Evening with H,L.
Mencken
Blood
