‘Drop Dead Perfect,’ a Comedy With Everett Quinton
In a sweet 1950s peach crocheted dress and matching bolero, Everett Quinton has never looked lovelier. As Idris Seabright, a lonely and overwrought spinster growing old in the Florida Keys, he laments a storm having wreaked “havoc on my African hibiscus — and my poor bougainvillea,” hitting each syllable with that posh Eastern accent that 1930s actresses favored. When a chord of ominous movie music plays, Idris strikes a terrified pose, and we could easily be downtown at the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, where Mr. Quinton and Charles Ludlam starred in the original “The Mystery of Irma Vep” 30 years ago.
Mr. Quinton is a genius. It is absolute rapture to see him in his element in “Drop Dead Perfect,” a Peccadillo Theater Company production at the Theater at St. Clement’s that originated at Penguin Rep in Rockland County.
Mr. Quinton is a genius. It is absolute rapture to see him in his element in “Drop Dead Perfect,” a Peccadillo Theater Company production at the Theater at St. Clement’s that originated at Penguin Rep in Rockland County.
“Drop Dead Perfect” has abundant plot. Vivien (Jason Edward Cook), an orphan with artistic talent and a leg brace (“Vivien, you’re a cripple,” Idris snaps), wants to study in New York. The family lawyer, Phineas Fenn (Michael Keyloun), supplies Idris with suspicious pills. A young Cuban, Ricardo (Jason Cruz), pays a visit, setting libidos aflutter. Idris keeps changing her will. And when she’s painting her still lifes, her subjects’ tendency to move annoys her so intensely that she may do something — ominous chord (sound design by William Neal) — horrible.
But this one-act parody lives mainly for its adolescent double entendres and Mr. Quinton’s delicious performance. Joe Brancato, the director, probably just let him run free. But when other actors do bits of perfect stage business — Ricardo’s reactions to seeing Teddy the dog dead and stuffed, for instance — it’s clear that Mr. Brancato’s contributions are considerable. There are even rumors that the name of the playwright, Erasmus Fenn, is a pseudonym.
Whoever wrote Idris’s line “Did you boys ever play games as children?” has seen exactly the right number of 20th-century thrillers. And TV shows. The play’s running “I Love Lucy” gag alternates between tired and clever. The best bit is the most obscure: When Vivien announces her plans to stay temporarily with a local antiques dealer, Ethel Mae Potter, only “Lucy” obsessionists may recognize Ethel Mertz’s maiden name.
Correction: July 22, 2014
An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the theater company behind “Drop Dead Perfect.” It is Peccadillo Theater Company, not Pecadillo.
