Drop Dead Perfect: Theater review by Adam Feldman
Principal among the pleasures afforded by the mock melodrama Drop Dead Perfect is, naturally, Everett Quinton, who tends to be among the principal pleasures of anything he’s in. Naturally may not be quite the right word, for Everett is a master of camp artifice, schooled in the wild-eyed ways of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, with a knack for playing demented dames like this play’s Idris Seabright. A 1950s Florida gargoyle with a penchant for painting still lifes, no matter how her subjects must be stilled, she’s as ruthless as she is rich, and as handy with a hatchet as a brush.
Drop Dead Perfect, written by the pseudonymous Erasmus Fenn and amiably directed by the Penguin Rep’s Joe Brancato, finds Idris trust torn among three other characters: her ingenuous ward (the sprightly Jason Edward Cook), a well-endowed Cuban ex-con who may be her nephew (Jason Cruz, with an accent as evasive as his character) and her pill-providing local lawyer (a droll Michael Keyloun). The plot’s hodgepodge of Alfred Hitchcock, Southern Gothic, The Glass Menagerie and I Love Lucy aspires only to a silliness that it ably achieves, and Quinton is deliciously ripe in this chopped fruit salad.—Adam Feldman
[Note: This is a review of the 2014 production. The current encore run features Timothy C. Goodwin in the role formerly played by Michael Keyloun.]
Drop Dead Perfect. Theatre at St. Clement's (see Off Broadway). By Erasmus Fenn. Directed by Joe Brancato. With Everett Quinton. Running time: 1hr 25mins. No intermission.
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