Playwright: Duane Scott Cerny. At: Even & Odd Theatricals at Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport. Phone: 312-902-1500; $15-$20. Runs through April 26
In order for Even and Odd Theatricals' Mrs. Hyde & The Case of the Gaslight Buggerings to have its fullest effect, the ideal audience would be packed with people who are all: A ) familiar with Robert Louis Stevenson's original novella of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; B ) familiar with some of the luminaries and sex practices in gay pornography; C ) drunk.
But even if you meet two of the three above qualifications, Mrs. Hyde won't be nearly as funny or as clever as it should be.
Mrs. Hyde no doubt aims to be a comical gay spoof in the vein of Charles Busch's Psycho Beach Party ( which mocked Gidget-type beach movies ) , or Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep ( which turned gothic horror novels into a comic drag tizzy ) .
Giving the buttoned-up Victorian Dr. Jekyll a flamboyant and sexually aggressive drag alter ego of Mrs. Hyde would have been a gay camp riot in the right hands. So it's a pity that playwright Duane Scott Cerny's efforts on Mrs. Hyde stumble so much.
Cerny's plotting rambles and his comic dialogue is rife with anachronistic and historical namedropping. ( It's odd that both porn director Chi Chi La Rue and Victorian-era Swedish soprano Jenny Lind get used as punch lines. )
Cerny also takes far too long to introduce Mrs. Hyde. By the time she starts buggering people in public, it's not that shocking because Cerny drops obvious hints that his characters are already sexually aware of acts involving everything from bestiality to golden showers.
Hampered with such a weak script, the cast and crew of Mrs. Hyde have a tough time getting laughs. Even if director Mark Contorno gave the play the snappier pacing it direly needed, it's doubtful that it would have helped.
It's also unlikely that the entire cast could have pulled off the arch comic style necessary for a better-written spoof. ( The less said about their phony British accents, the better. )
Still, Nathan Hicks does have his moments as the frustrated servant Poole, as does Charles Renfroe as the stuffy lawyer Udderson.
The Dr. Jekyll of John Highberger and Mrs. Hyde of Tony Lage probably would have been more fun if either of the actors got to play both parts. That way, we'd get the masculine/feminine duality of the same character in starker relief. Now it's just one guy in trousers and the other guy in a wig and dress.
It's too bad Mrs. Hyde is a plodding disappointment. There's some real potential in its concept and it's finely appointed with set pieces from Broadway Antique Market. Alas, someone else will have to provide a better drag spoof to brighten our spirits.