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Satire 'Irma Vep' is for laughs — lots of them

By Rich Copley rcopley@herald-leader.com

Ryan Case has wanted to put on a production of The Mystery of Irma Vep ever since he saw the show at Actors Guild of Lexington in 1996.

Twelve years later, the show is at Natasha's Cafe's Balagula Theatre, and Case says the timing is perfect.

It's not that the satire of Vic torian drama, Hitchcock mystery and farce says anything about elections or economic travails.

In fact, Case, Balagula's director, says it will help people forget those problems, for at least a couple of hours.

And with a proven gut-buster of a play and a reliable partner in Shayne Brakefield, Case thinks Balagula has the right formula for much-needed comedy tonight.

"It has to be a brother on stage with you to make this work," Case says. "There are a lot of elements to this show, but in the end, it's two people working their butts off on stage for an hour and 45 minutes."

Well, two people and a lot more characters.

In the course of the show, Case says the actors have 82 exits and entrances and 42 costume changes.

"It's a quick-change tour de force," Brakefield says. "There are moments you walk off as a man and you come back on as a woman."

Case adds, "And you have 10 seconds to change clothes, shoes and gender."

That makes the brotherhood of the actors essential.

"If something is going wrong, I can look in Ryan's eyes and see it."

Case and Brakefield's brotherhood was born of mutual admiration.

Brakefield saw In the Garden of Live Flowers at Actors Guild of Lexington in 2003, a drama about environmental pioneer Rachel Carson that was sometimes funnier than it was supposed to be.

"Ryan played a baby, a bee, a little girl and a caterpillar," Brakefield says. "I came up to him after the show and told him how great it was. I was a fan."

Case went to see Brakefield in ActOut Theatre's production of Sordid Lives.

"There was one scene where a flat fell, and Shayne finished the scene acting while holding up the wall," Case says. "I said, 'That's who I want to act with.'"

And the pair did, most notably in Power Plays, a pairing of two Alan Arkin-Elaine May one-acts that illuminated different genders' approaches to power. Case and Brakefield presented the play at Natasha's in 2007.

In her review for the Herald-Leader, Candace Chaney wrote, "the source of each of the two plays' cohesive yet unique presentation of power is the sense of subtlety, timing and versatility mastered by its two actors."

Having established themselves as a comic duo, Brakefield says, "The next thing I'd like to do with Ryan is a drama."

They'll have to plan carefully because Brakefield recently moved to New York to try to break into theater there. But he already had committed to Irma Vep when he made the move.

Brakefield and Case hope to revive the show in Ukraine, where they have an invitation to perform it at the Kiev Drama Theatre in Podol as a benefit for people there with HIV/AIDS. They also would be discussing the possibility of "sister theater" projects between Lexington and Ukraine.

But first, they have to raise money for the trip.

"It's going to be difficult in times like these," Case says. "We hope people will the importance of this."

Here or in Ukraine, maybe Brakefield and Case will inspire others the way they've inspired each other.