A madcap Christmas farce, The Mystery of Irma Vep, is requiring the Fortune Theatre’s behind-the-scenes staff to pull out all the creative stops. Rebecca Fox discovers plenty of Kiwi ingenuity.
With costumes needing to be taken off with the speed of a stripper and props requiring ingeniousm but cheap, transformations the heroes of the latest Fortune production have become familiar hot glue and velcro.
''If we could find a hot glue sponsor we'd save most of our budget,'' stage manager George Wallace joked.
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 (1940).
The title is an anagram for the ''vampire'' and came from a character in the 1915 French movie serial Les Vampires.
The story revolves around Lord Edgar, an Eygptologist of Mandacrest Estate, and Lady Enid, his second wife, though he has yet to recover entirely from the passing of his first wife, Irma Vep. Add into the mix the house staff, a maid named Jane Twisden and a swineherd named Nicodemus Underwood.
It requires two actors - Stephen Butterworth (he last appeared at the Fortune in Ladies Night as Bernie and has been chosen to appear in next year's Pop-up Globe in Auckland) and Will Spicer (a former Dunedin man who toured New Zealand with The Keys are in the Margarine and Be|Longing) - to play the host characters.
Costume designer Maryanne Wright-Smyth has grudgingly used velcro - not her material of choice - as the actors in the play do 50 costume changes during the course of the 90-minute play.
They have split-seconds to change from males to females, from English lords and mistresses to Egyptian priests and back again.
It has posed some creative wardrobe dilemmas and tested Wright-Smyth's skills in designing and making period dresses for men.
''I hate it. They never look elegant.''
Having also had to create dresses for men in the Hound of the Baskervilles, she thinks she has found a solution by shaping the waist to give the illusion of the dress falling more elegantly.
''I think it should work. I want them to look nice and floaty, not frumpy, to start with.''
Given the costumes were going to be ripped off quickly numerous times every night, they had to be made well.
''I imagine I'm going to have a lot of mending to do.''
A wide range of styles is also needed including a safari suit complete with shorts held together at the back by velcro, able to be whipped off in a second so the actor can transform himself into an Egyptian.
Then there is the tweed hunting suit complete with knickbokers and a severe maid's outfit, not to mention the wigs: up dos, long wavy hair ones and the black Egyptian style.
The play's author, Charles Ludlam, has helped with tips for the costumes, providing pointers on things to be considered.
As the play involves a lot of mystery and illusion, stage managers Wallace and Erica Browne have become quite creative in how they put together the props.
There are a lot of special effects and stage illusions required to create the magic on stage, such as an actor's transformation into a werewolf, Mr Browne says.
''In the movies you have a lot of shots you cut together but this is happening live on stage and yet you need it to be just as magical.''
That required finding an old bear costume and re-purposing it as a werewolf costume.
As the play is set in the Victorian period, most props had to be made from scratch or creatively re-purposed.
''In this [financial] climate you can't do that in the ultimate way but you still want it to look amazing. There's been a lot of paint and hot glue.''
The gun needed for one scene is made from an ice cream container cut up and covered with hot glue and painted to resemble tarnished metal.
''You couldn't do that for film but you can get away with it on stage.''
And that is all before the play even hits the stage. Once on stage the numerous changes in set, costumes and props are going to require a very specific ''run sheet'' so everyone knows where things need to be at what times, Browne says.
Not only are the stage and props getting the Victorian melodrama make-over but so is the Fortune Theatre, becoming ''Fortune Manor'' for the occasion. Staff will dress in theme as well.
Fortune artistic director Jonathon Hendry, who is also directing Irma Vep, said one of the reasons the Fortune selected the play was because it fitted with the Fortune's gothic building.
''Come celebrate the building. The play is very much set in a building similar.
''As soon as you walk in the door you'll be transformed back into this zany, mad place - it's Downton Abbey meets Sherlock Holmes meets Monty Python.''
With the Fortune already rumoured to have its own ghost, the production will be adding vampires and werewolves to the mix, he said.
''There'll be lots of surprises.''
The Fortune is also holding a dress-up late show as part of its season for the production and making over the theatre downstairs into a parlour space for groups.
''It's Christmas - it's about people having a laugh and enjoying themselves.''
