The Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre presents Glen or Glenda - Live!

First (and probably worst) among the Wood films was Glen or Glenda (1953), also released as I Led Two Lives , I Changed My Sex, and He or She. Leonard Maltin says "it could well be the worst movie ever made" (although others nominate Wood's magnum opus Plan Nine from Outer Space for that title) and describes it as a "dizzying hodgepodge of stock footage, demented dream sequences, and a heartfelt plea for tolerance" of cross-dressing - apparently Wood's second big interest after film-making. Probably due to lack of space, Maltin leaves out the film's other major component - acting of such stunning ineptitude (capped by a performance by Bela Lugosi that can only be called hallucinogenic) that it seems impossible to credit it to mere luck. Some sort of divine presence (perhaps J.R. "Bob" Dobbs himself?) must have brought these painfully bad actors together.

Given the fact that Glen or Glenda is a kind of Platonic ideal of the Bad Movie, one might wonder why anyone in his or her right mind would want to produce a stage version of it. Judging by the St. Louis Shakespeare Company's Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre production of Glen or Glenda - Live! (on view at the black box theatre of Crossroads School March 30th through April 13th), the answer would appear to be: because it can actually be made even funnier.

Like Mike and the 'bots in the aforementioned Mystery Science Theatre 3000, the actors and overall production concept of Glen or Glenda - Live! offer a tongue-in-cheek comment on the material itself. The sets and costumes are black and white '50s kitsch. Max Cheney (as Bela Lugosi) sits in splendid isolation above the stage, spouting Lugosi's often-meaningless narration from the film in perfect imitation of the late actor's delivery. B. Weller narrates the bulk of the story in a style that parodies Rod Serling. Ruth Hartmeister manages to sound and look so much like Wood's erstwhile leading lady and girlfriend Dolores Fuller that it's a bit creepy, and Christopher Hickey has the limited body language of the classically bad Timothy Farrell (as the psychiatrist) down pat. Bob Koerner doesn't look much like Ed Wood (the original cross-dressing Glen/Glenda), as I recall, but he has the attitude right, and is wackily endearing. And Dag Haddal provides an elaborate soundtrack of tacky period music to set up the ambiance and comment on the proceedings.

Oddly enough, a live version of Glen or Glenda seems very much in tune with the overall direction the St. Louis Shakespeare Company has taken over the years. I've been viewing and sometimes acting with the company since it's first production over ten years ago (Twelfth Night, in case anyone's taking notes), and I've noticed a willingness on the part of artistic director Donna Northcott and her fellow directors to take chances and pour old wine in radically new bottles. The experiments haven't always worked, but more often than not they've produced some genuinely enlightening takes on classic Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean material, usually with considerable textual justification.

In this context, the stage adaptation of Glen or Glenda is just another new take on a classic. Granted, it's a classic of incompetence, but the concept is fundamentally the same, it seems to me. And in any case, it's a pretty hilarious evening of off-the-wall, bizarre theatre - ideally suited to a late night (10:30 curtain) venue. There's very little after-hours theatre in St. Louis at the moment (the only other company to venture into this realm has been the Orthwein Theatre, although their material tends to be more...um...legitimate), so Magic Smoking Monkey has the field pretty much to itself at the moment. Given the apparent success of the show, however (it's already something of a "hot ticket", and the space at Crossroads is fairly small), I suspect this may not last.

By the way, for those of you who weren't reading comics during the Fabulous Fifties (as I was), the Magic Smoking Monkey was an item one could order from the fabled Johnson Smith Catalog ads on the inside back cover of Superman or World's Finest. Nestled in amongst the X-Ray Specs and Black Soap, the monkey came with two small "cigarettes" you could place in its mouth. When lit, the cigarettes gave off tiny smoke rings. Northcott sees it as the ideal '50s icon, and the company is giving one away to a lucky attendee at each performance. Since Johnson Smith no longer offers the monkey, this may be your only chance to own the priceless bit of Americana, unless Franklin Mint decides to pick them up.

So there you have it: Ed Wood, 'fifties foolishness with a 'nineties sensibility, a door prize, and even a live "short subject" on "Dating Tips". What more could you want at 10:30 at night on a weekend, except possibly an open bar? The St. Louis Shakespeare Company's Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre production of Glen or Glenda - Live! continues through April 13th at the black box theatre of Crossroads School, 500 DeBaliviere in the Central West End. Tickets are $7.00 and available at the door or by calling 776-7827. Be there - or be somewhere else.