California Shakespeare Theatre is doing something entirely different from their usual line of Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde plays by presenting Charles Ludlam's "penny dreadful" campy play The Mystery of Irma Vep starring Danny Scheie and Liam Vincent. I don't know how many times I have seen this ostentatious play, but it is always great fun to see it again. And this is one of the better productions, thanks to Danny Scheie and Liam Vincent who give zany off the wall performances and to director Jonathan Moscone who has added a few touches of his own. It's two hours and twenty minutes of pure mayhem on the Bruns Amphitheatre stage.

The Mystery of Irma Vep is part melodrama and part old English vaudeville. The comedy opens in the eerie drawing room of a Victorian manor, a direct reference to Mandalay Manor in the film Rebecca. In fact, the first act is really a parody of the film with Danny Scheie playing Nicodemus, the Scottish gamekeeper, and Lady Enid Hillcrest and Liam Vincent playing the housekeeper Jane and Lord Edgar Hillcrest.

There are some wonderful sight gags and literary allusions, not only to the Hitchcock film Rebecca but to the Sam Goldwyn film of Wuthering Heights. Danny Scheie is outstanding as Nicodemus looking somewhat like Igor in the Frankenstein films. His distinctive voice rings throughout the outside amphitheater. With quick change artistry he disappears and in an instant appears as Lady Enid Hillcrest. He floats across the stage talking like Goldie Hawn with just a small amount of Bette Davis as Baby Jane in his speech. Liam Vincent holds his own playing the sinister housekeeper Jane Twisden. He plays the role like Cloris Leachman as housekeeper Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein. Vincent is also first rate in the roles of Jane Lord Edgar Hillcrest. The two actors play well against each other, with Nicodemus full of malapropisms and Jane well educated, since she has read "Pilgrim's Progress" from cover to cover. Both give whacky performances delivered at greased-lightning speed.

The first scene in the second act takes place in a deep, dark, and dank Egyptian tomb where Danny Scheie becomes Alcazar the Egyptian guide and a wild and flamboyant princess who suddenly comes alive. He is priceless as the resurrected princess with his purely hilarious dancing and fractured Egyptian speech. Director John Moscone has inserted two excellent scenes involving Liam Vincent singing Frank Sinatra's "Witchcraft" like Madeline Kahn singing in the Marlene Dietrich style in Blazing Saddles and the side-spitting dueling dulcimers duet in the second act.

Douglas Schmidt has designed an awesome set of a Victorian drawing room with French doors, trick bookcases, and hidden passage, along with various heads of animals. He has also inserted very cleverly in the second act an Egyptian flat set of the Transamerica building here in San Francisco. Alex Nichols, lighting designer, and Cliff Caruthers, sound designer, have produced some splendid thunder and lightning effects. Katherine Roth's Victorian costumes are breathtaking.

Bottom line—if you want just a fun night, this will do the trick.

The Mystery of Irma Vep runs through September 6th, 2015, at the Bruns Amphitheatre, Highway 24 just past the Caldecott Tunnel on Shakespeare Way, Orinda. For tickets call 510-548-9666 or visit www.calshakes.org. Coming up next is the Shakespearean tragedy King Lear opening on September 17th.

- Richard Connema