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| Charles Ludlam, Black-Eyed Susan. |
HOT ICE [Comedy/Crime/Death/Science-Fiction]
A/D: Charles Ludlam; S/C: Edward Avedisian; L: Richard Currie; P: Ridiculous
Theatrical Company; T: Evergreen Theatre (OB); 2/7/74-4/28/74 (94)
Charles Ludlam’s zany troupe of Off-Off Broadway satirists,
the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, produced Hot
Ice as a regular Off-Broadway production during a season that also included
their eccentric revival of Camille.
Ludlam, as usual, wrote, directed, and starred in this campy comedy about
criminal capering concerning a crew of cryogenic crooks and their conflict with
the cops, that is, the Euthanasia Police.
Ludlam’s verbal legerdemain—puns, literary, social, and
political allusions, quotes from Jimmy Cagney films, plays on words—was put to
service in this crime-film spoof about the members of the Cryogenic Foundation
trying to foil death’s killing spree by freezing everything live they can
get their hands on. Undercover cop Buck Armstrong (Ludlam) comes to the aid of
one of the intended subjects (Black-Eyed Susan) and saves the day.
Gender switching, a frequent Ludlam device, was evident in
the role of a bare-breasted woman played by a bald man wearing a plastic chest
piece, a man dressed in hot pants and miniskirt, and so on. During the show,
there also was a Pirandellian interruption from the audience to protest euthanasia.
Ludlam dropped his Buck Armstrong character at this point to reject the bit as
too Pirandellian to suit him.
Mel Gussow, who relished this group’s work, thought all who
had similar tastes would like it, although the script could have been more compact.
“Hot Ice is Ludlamian, which is to
say ur-Ridiculous—a manic collection of gags, word plays and horseplay, with
enough sense beneath the nonsense to make the evening food for thought.” To
Walter Kerr, on the other hand, the troupe was “undisciplined and often flailing,”
as they had had never “learned how to make humor out of anarchy.” Of their
vaunted word play, he commented, “Babes in arms have done better.”
Ludlamites involved included Bill Veer, Richard Currie, Jack Mallory, Lola Pashalinski, John D. Brockmeyer, and others.
