One of the running gags in the late-1960’s US TV comedy show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In was a German soldier who would pop up without warning and, in response to the previous sketch, say, "Very interesting…. But stupid!" (It’s only five seconds, and it’s here if you’d like to check it out.)
That German soldier would not have been out of place in Vanitas.
The setup is intriguing. A group of strange characters with bizarrely exaggerated behavioural tics gather at the headquarters of a religious cult. Shortly afterwards the skull of the cult’s founder goes missing, and his ghost is summoned to help find the thief. What could it all mean? Is it a commentary on the exploitative nature of society? An exposé of charlatan psychics? An analysis of the needy souls who seek out such organisations in the first place?
No. It’s just very, very silly.
The cast members embrace the silliness with enthusiasm and skill. Roman Pitman as Augustus the cult leader gets big laughs from his Mrs-Malapropish mispronunciations (‘gravy-tea’ instead of ‘gravity’), and his confession that the true love of his life is a drop of water called Harry, the sight of whom trickling down a window-pane is enough to drive Augustus to the edge of orgasm, is one of the highlights of the evening. Hard to believe that last week he was Titus Andronicus.
Gregory Sidaway as Shirley, a visitor with the deductive powers of Inspector Gadget, delivers some punchy physical comedy, shaking hands with impossibly awkward stiffness and keeping his pen clipped to his spectacles. Ally Mitchell’s laconic slacker Teddy makes the perfect foil for Shirley. In fact they end up re-enacting the infamous tent silhouette scene from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Julia Maranhao-Wong is part-innocent, part-influencer Bunny, and Daniel Doyle Vidaurre plays the ghost of cult founder Gideon Saxon (or does he?) with a combination of spooky anger and testy impatience. Doyle Vidaurre also wrote this inanity.
As a piece of comedy, Vanitas depends a little too heavily on schoolboy puns (‘I came! And now you’re in a sticky mess’), and the repeated use of gay sex as a reason for laughter teeters on insensitivity. The plot lurches clumsily from scene to scene, with jokes often being the reason for actions, rather than the other way round. But it does have some genuinely funny moments, such as the story of the ‘Egg-o-Matic’ machine that the late Gideon Saxon applied experimentally to his own testicles. Part of the humour lies in the sheer, brazen awkwardness with which these sections are inserted into the play, with no relevance to what has gone before or what is to come afterwards. 'Vanitas' in Latin means ‘an empty or worthless activity’ - a refreshingly honest title.
In other words, it really is just a bit of fun, and in the hot light of critical analysis it melts like a frightened candle. But if you’ve just spent the first half of your Oxford term rehearsing Titus Andronicus , then what could be more reinvigorating than taking part in an hour of meaningless laughter? Very interesting. But stupid.