Geoff Nelson and Michael Harper in CATCO's 1990 Production of "The Mystery of Irma Vep"
It’s been twenty years since I last performed in drag.
CATCO staged The Mystery of Irma Vep at Halloween in 1990 in our old Park Street space (now the Columbus Children’s Theatre). Performing the show again after all this time has brought back many memories.
Our associate artistic director, Ionia Zelenka, directed the earlier production. Resident actor Michael Harper and I were slated to play the two roles and I assumed that I would be playing Lord Edgar – at 6’2” I thought I was a little too large for Lady Enid. But Ionia insisted that it would be funnier if I played the “beautiful” Lady Enid and if Michael played Lord Edgar. She was right.
- Geoff Nelson and Michael Harper in CATCO’s 1990 Production of “The Mystery of Irma Vep.”
(This time around, the disparity in size between me and Jon Putnam is even more pronounced than it was with Michael. Several patrons have commented how much we remind them of Abbott and Costello, but I prefer to think of us as The Skipper and Gilligan.)
During the late technical rehearsals for the 1990 version, I ripped the cartilage in my knee (an old volleyball injury), which was extremely painful and led to us postponing the opening for two days. During the dress rehearsals, Michael ran about onstage doing his lines and making his fast costume changes while I did my lines from the audience seats. When we opened (and throughout the run), I had to perform in a knee brace.
We were so harried at the opening, I remember rushing offstage to change costumes without the slightest idea of what scene or character came next. Thankfully, we had two excellent dressers, Linda Yerina (now Zuby) and Janetta Davis – themselves both accomplished actresses – who slapped the right costumes on us, reminded us of where we were in the plot and then shoved us out onto the stage. Linda Yerina, my dresser, would also critique my comic delivery during my brief forays behind the scenes.
In a show like Vep, when something occasionally goes wrong onstage or when you need to buy a little extra time for a costume change, the actor has to ad lib something.
In one quick change, when my character Nicodemus had had his wooden leg bitten off by a werewolf (offstage), I had to buy a few extra seconds for Michael Harper to change from Lord Edgar to Jane as he rushed offstage to save me. Nicodemus yells “Help, Lord Edgar!” I added “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” which was a line from a popular television commercial for an emergency alert worn by seniors. Every night this ad lib got so much response that Michael easily completed his costume change and had to wait for the laughter to die down before he could enter.
(I tried the same line this time around, but the commercial is a distant memory now and the ad lib got no response.)
Another time, as Lady Enid, I had trouble sitting quickly on the settee because of my knee brace. As I plunked down, the antique Victorian two-seater sounded like it was splintering into a million pieces. I leapt to my feet and announced, “I start the Slim Fast diet Monday!” Huge laughter.
Geoff Nelson and Michael Harper in CATCO's 1990 Production of "The Mystery of Irma Vep"
Afterwards, I discovered that the sound was not caused by my bulk, but by the settee’s wooden legs scraping on the concrete floor of our old theatre. With a little practice, I was able to hit the two-seater at just the right angle to re-create the sound in subsequent performances (and to use the Slim Fast ad lib).
The “splintering” sofa is not part of our current production of Irma Vep, but on opening night I was pleasantly surprised to find a gift waiting in my dressing room from my former dresser, Linda (Yerina) Zuby, now living in Virginia. 
It was a six-pack of Slim Fast.
Geoff Nelson and Michael Harper in CATCO's 1990 Production of "Irma Vep"
Geoff Nelson and Jonathan Putnam in CATCO's Current Production of "Irma Vep"
–Geoffrey Nelson, CATCO Artistic Director and Actor
