Ridiculous! The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam.(Book Review)(Brief Article)

by David Kaufman Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 472 pp. $29.95

It's difficult to know whether David Kaufman's well-researched account of the life and career of New York theater genius Charles Ludlam will appeal to those not fortunate enough to have seen this great actor/playwright/director at work. For fans of Ludlam and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company, and for students of the theater, it will make for riveting reading. During the twenty years from his creation of the Ridiculous, in 1967, to his death from AIDS, in 1987, Ludlam wrote, directed and almost always starred in twenty-nine plays, which ran the gamut from seemingly anarchic, sprawling camp classics to well-crafted, highly praised and awarded comic dramas.

Ludlam himself was a fascinating combination of contradictions: a gay man creating with a gay sensibility, he abhorred the label; a trailblazer in the New York theater scene, he loathed and parodied the avant-garde (he also loathed the mainstream); a near-chaotically permissive director who sometimes based casting on affection rather than on talent, he was a stickler for comic timing. (His own was natural and impeccable.) And although Ludlam was known as a drag performer, due largely to his legendary version of Camille, as well as his hilarious yet sympathetic portrait of Maria Callas (in his Galas), most of Ludlam's stage roles were male.

Opera was also a two-sided coin; ...