Play Guide [2.6MB PDF] - Arizona Theatre Company

ALLUSIONS
THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP
Jane:
Watch what you’re doing! Your’re soaking wet! Don’t
track mud in here!
Nicodemus:
It’s God’s good rain, my girl!
Jane:
It’s the devil’s rain, that’s what it is!
GHOSTS
Regina:
What do you want? Stay where you are, you’re dripping wet!
Engstrand:
It’s God’s good rain, my girl.
Regina:
It’s the devil’s rain, that’s what it is!
REBECCA
-Reprinted wither permission from the Court Theatre's play guide for The Mystery of Irma Vep.
One of the primary infl uences on THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP
is Alfred Hitchcock’s fi lm version of the 1938 novel Rebecca
and Charlotte Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Read the summary
and see if you can fi nd where Ludlam references Rebecca!
Summary of Rebecca (Warning! Spoiler alert!)
The fi lm begins with a voiceover of a woman speaking the fi rst
lines from the novel: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley
again," to the images of a ruined country manor [in IRMA VEP
the name of the house is Mandacrest]. She continues that she
can never return to Manderley — as it no longer exists, except
as a ruin. Joan Fontaine plays a young woman (who is never
named), an orphan, who works as a paid companion to the
wealthy Edythe Van Hopper (Florence Bates). In Monte Carlo,
The Mystery of Irma Vep
A scene from a 1985 production
of Ghosts in Berlin
Arizona Theatre Company Play Guide 15