Stage and Screen Stage and Screen is an online publication offering the latest Entertainment news of Productions on Stage, and on Screens.
Mystery Theatre coming to JHB and CT
VR Theatrical, by special arrangement with Samuel French Inc present The Mystery of Irma Vep, in Johannesburg and Cape Town from 5 July 2017, starring Jonathan Roxmouth & Weslee Swain Lauder.
Jonathan Roxmouth (Sweeney Todd, Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), one of the biggest names in South African theatre, stars with the inimitable Weslee Swain Lauder (Sweeney Todd, Janice Honeyman’s Peter Pan, Starlight Express) in The Mystery of Irma Vep as they have never been seen before! The acclaimed play is conceived and written by Charles Ludlum, directed by Elizma Badenhorst (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I Love you, You’re perfect, Now Change) with an original score by Wessel Odendaal.
On a remote manor called Mandacrest, something is amiss. Between the horrors of a marauding beast terrorizing the estate and the looming presence of the recently deceased former mistress Irma Vep, matters become awkward in the extreme for Lord Edgar and his new wife, Lady Enid. In this side-splitting comedy, you’ll be taken from the moors of England to the tombs of Egypt and back again, encountering along the way a host of vampires, werewolves, mummies and all manner of things that go bump in the night.
The Mystery of Irma Vep is a satire of several theatrical, literary and film genres, including Victorian melodrama, farce, the penny dreadful, Wuthering Heights and the Alfred Hitchcock film, Rebecca. The cast of eight characters in this deliciously decadent ‘whodunnit?’ – lunatics, beasts, ghouls and gentlefolk – are played by only two actors who swop character and costumes faster than you can say ‘vampire!’. The intricate wardrobe design is by Pierre du Plessis, scenic design is by Nadine and Louis Minnaar and lighting design is by Oliver Hauser.
The production will be on the boards at Pieter Toerien’s Theatre at Montecasino from 5 to 30 July and at Theatre On The Bay in Cape Town from 2 to 19 August.
