THEATER REVIEW:Talented Vanguard actors need better script

Last season, Vanguard University produced a play by David McFadzean, “Oklahoma Rigs,” which proved to be somewhat offbeat but quite enjoyable. This year the college is pressing its luck with David McFadzean’s “Cleopatra’s Wake.”

Despite the talent and energy present onstage in the student cast, the play itself is a bit of a mess. “Cleopatra’s Wake,” an elaborate whodunit set in the 1920s, is awash in a sea of red herrings and improbable situations.

The murder victim — dispatched prior to the start of the action — was a boozing, washed-up actor on a par with James Tyrone from “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” but we’re a long way from Eugene O’Neill here. Tyrone repeatedly performed in “The Count of Monte Cristo”; McFadzean’s thespian slogged his way through “Cleopatra.”

Or he did until, two years before, his actress wife caught him cheating and brought a real asp on stage for her final scene. After her death, the actor kept the creature slithering around the house as a pet, and Vanguard employs a live serpent to portray this character.

“Cleopatra’s Wake” opens with the family assembled for the father’s funeral. Secrets abound, there’s a good deal of shushing among the survivors, especially when the topic turns to daughter Anna (Chelan Glavan), a severely autistic young woman whose only speech consists of lines from “Cleopatra,” which she watched from the wings for years.

The two surviving sons are a contrasting pair, the more interesting being Oliver (Ryan Miller), a hard-drinking intellectual who commands the stage with sardonic vigor. His brother Aaron (Tim Lavino), is a stuffed shirt running for state office and squirming under the thumb of his glamorous wife, Dora (Rebekah Ehrich).

On the fringe of the action are the family’s aunt Lillis (Kristie Clark), a peanut-devouring busybody in the Miss Marple mode; Rita (Christi Brixey), an attractive young family retainer, and Mort Boyle (Jason Stevens), a sort of early-day crocodile hunter who arrives to spice up the second act.

Miller adopts an obviously inherited theatrical style to drive the production, fueled with martinis that (this being the Prohibition era) are quite illegal. Clark initiates a few chuckles as the meddling aunt and Glavan startles as the off-and-on daughter who may or may not be the murderer.

Ehrich is the foremost exponent of the period and slinks about the stage splendidly. Lavino turns frustration into an art form, Brixey is warm and demure, while Stevens tears up the stage in his search for the deadly viper.

There is little director Vanda Eggington can do to clarify this meandering script, which never really becomes clear even when the killer is revealed. Heavy plotting and an endless series of wrong turns have weighted the play beyond repair.

The director’s husband, Paul Eggington, has designed the ingenious setting, which includes a trick mummy case and a gigantic portrait of the late Mrs. Langland as Cleopatra. Lia Hansen’s period costumes enhance the proceedings, as does Harmony Whaling’s lighting.

“Cleopatra’s Wake” may not be terrific theater, but it does offer Vanguard’s student actors the opportunity to play with an ancient style of acting, which will benefit them in future endeavors.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Cleopatra’s Wake”

WHERE: Vanguard University Lyceum Theater, 55 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa

WHEN: Closing performances tonight at 8 p.m. tonight, Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, and Sunday at 2 p.m. Sunday.

COST: $8 to $10

CALL: (714) 668-6145