Footlight Footnotes Irma Vep delights in drag, Teddy Bear makes for gritty drama, while Democracy is as boring as the Grant administration

Script and actor are the fundamentals of theater, and the strength of one can empower the other. This installment of Footlight Footnotes looks at three productions with vastly different script-actor dynamics: Court Theatre's The Mystery Of Irma Vep, Urban Theater and People's Theater's Cuba And His Teddy Bear, and Eclipse Theatre Company's Democracy.

If magic happens when a great script is paired with a great cast, then Charles Ludlam's The Mystery Of Irma Vep is making yachts disappear. Not convinced? Well, for starters, there's a scene where Chris Sullivan (below) becomes a topless Egyptian princess.

Irma Vep loses its mind in the first 10 minutes and proceeds into the depths of insanity for the following two hours. Ludlam’s penny dreadful is a rapid-fire technical spectacle: More than 35 costume changes occur, most in the span of a few seconds as two actors portray seven characters without ever missing a beat. Erik Hellman plays raunchy housemaid Jane, pompous Lord Edgar, and the titular Irma Vep (clue: it's an anagram) and Chris Sullivan as the lumbering Nicodemus, dainty Lady Enid, and Egyptian tour guide Alcazar. The pressure of quick changes is stress enough for the actors, but the difficulty of having to strip away a character and build a new one in seconds makes the flawless transitions all the more impressive. The fine performances illuminate the brilliance of Ludlam’s script, influenced by '80s drag shows and Gothic monster horror, while still delighting in the lowest common denominator—sex and violence.

Glorious harmony between scripts and actors is a rare occurrence, though, as drug-fueled drama Cuba And His Teddy Bear, playing at Humboldt Park’s The Batey Urbano, demonstrates how the talents of a cast can overcome the flaws of a script.

Drug dealer Cuba (Madrid St. Angelo) desperately seeks respect from his heroin addict son Teddy (Christian Kain Blackburn), a comlicated relationship that's captured perfectly by the two actors. Problem is Reinaldo Povod's script is just too long: The production begins to slow down when it veers away from the main plotline of Cuba and Teddy’s family-bonding drug-deal time, while some characters serve as little more than background music for the real action. The exception is a wonderfully creepy scene between Teddy and lover/potential client Che, portrayed by Julian Martinez with a calm indifference, where heartbreak and heroin combine to make prescription-grade suspense. The actors have shown that they have the capability of capturing intense dramatic moments—Act II erupts into a mess of blood and crazy Freudian shit—and Povod has a great handle on gritty dialogue, but the extraneous elements of the script introduce pacing problems that are difficult to overcome. (Coked out salsa dancers may be fun to watch, but it doesn’t add much to the general story.)

Similar problems hinder Democracy. Based on two Henry Adams novels that use the Ulysses S. Grant administrations as a backdrop, Romulus Linney’s Democracy is a treatise on government corruption and religious ignorance. Sound boring? It is. Now playing at the Greenhouse Theater Center, the production's committed cast and strong eye for design can't compensate for a script based on a period of U.S. history that really isn't all that dramatic or interesting. When the plot moves away from discussion of political ethics and religious persecution, it actually shows a glimmer of hope. Barbara Roeder Harris is hilarious as Lydia Dudley, a horny grandma who knew George Washington personally. Female leads Madeleine Lee (Rebecca Prescott) and Esther Dudley (Nina O’Keefe) are proto-feminists struggling with the hypocrisies of male-dominated fields, and the actresses are admirable in trying to give the women extra dimensions, but Finney’s script doesn’t give them much room to breathe. Anyone with a fervent interest in corruption during Ulysses S. Grant's presidency will love Democracy, but it's hard to recommend otherwise.