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OPERETTA REVIEW
The Timeless Charm of G&S January 25, 2002
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By John Kendall Bailey
It is amazing that I had not attended one of Lamplighters' celebrated
Gilbert & Sullivan performances until this past weekend, when I found myself
utterly charmed and won over by the company's current production of
Patience, the closing production of their 49th season. The particularly
unique form of musical theater which Gilbert and Sullivan developed and
which came to be called 'Savoy Opera', is not necessarily to everyone's
taste. Both in music and lyric, this is distinctly British stuff, and can
sometimes fly right over the heads of some who may not understand the quirky
and silly humor or the constant rhyming words. And, like Shakespeare, many
of the references are dated or particular to the country. But a company
like Lamplighters, who clearly understands the idiom, presents it all so
convincingly that even the most doubtful attendee would likely be swayed.
Even though Patience is one of the legendary duo's most popular works (and
one of my favorites), its place in the repertory still seems eclipsed by
the Mikado, Pirates of Penzance, and H.M.S. Pinafore. Yet, perhaps from the
increase of interest due to the success of the movie "Topsy Turvy," interest
is still strong in these late-19th-century works of musical theater, a fact
made clear by the full house of laughing, applauding patrons at the closing
performance of this weekend's run at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the
Arts in Walnut Creek.
Patience, comicly subtitled Bunthorne's Bride for reasons made clear at the
story's end, is a marvellous satire of Aestheticism, the movement which
occurred in the late 1800s which glorified and popularized the fine arts.
The work pokes some mostly indirect fun at aesthetes like the author Oscar
Wilde, the poet Algernon Swinburne and the painter James McNeill Whistler,
and some critics have felt that such subject matter is dated and may not
appeal to modern audiences. Hardly so, I say! Anyone who is conscious of
society's ongoing changing fads and trends (and can take two steps back to
even laugh at our own susceptibility to such fads) will find this a
hysterical commentary.
Lamplighters' production, with wonderful wit and over-the-top silliness, made a convincing case for the modern appeal of Patience. Director Jane Hammett put wonderful touches througout the whole work, ranging from the Dragoon Guards cocking their heads in different directions every few measures of music in "The soldiers of our Queen" to Lady Jane running around madly clashing large cymbals in "Let the merry cymbals sound" — truly one of the most outrageously silly moments I've ever seen. The true stars of this production were F. Lawrence Ewing as Reginald Bunthorne and Christine Macomber as Lady Jane. Their performances sparkled with comic excellence, brightening the stage and alternately drawing complete attention and hysterics from the audience. Ewing, a long-time Lamplighter, shone in the role of Bunthorne. With wonderful antics and utterly silly hat and wig, he was a perfect example of the caricature of Aestheticism which Sir Gilbert must have had in mind. Singing and enunciating with ease, he seems born to sing Gilbert and Sullivan and certainly has years of experience behind him. Christine Macomber, a fairly recent addition to Lamplighters' roster, was outstanding as Bunthorne's elderly, obsessed admirer. She combined a genuine talent for comedy with a perfect sense of the absurd - from the aforementioned cymbal scene to transforming "Sad is that woman's lot" into a show-stopping number, accompanying her recitative and aria on the cello with the perfect combination of accuracy and comic clumsiness. She and Ewing together catalyzed side-splitting laughs in their duet "So go to him and say to him". It was hard for me to tell if Leslie Sandefur's stiffness on stage was part of her characterization of the title role of Patience or not, but she brought across the dairy maid's naivete quite well, and threw in some marvellously thrilling high notes. Christopher Walkey was an amiable and cocky Archibald Grosvenor, the perfect unintentional adversary for Bunthorne. His duet with Sandefur, "Prithee pretty maiden," was one of the sweetest I've heard. Of the Ladies, Anita Jo Lenhart (Lady Angela), Keri Gleason (Lady Ella), and Joanna Fouts (Lady Saphir) each added their individual charms to their roles, and of the Dragoon Guards, Robert Dorsett made a fine Major Murgatroyd, and Christopher Yorro, although not entirely secure in his highest register, provided some of the most beautiful singing tone in the show.
I especially enjoyed Charles Martin's performance of Colonel Calverly. With a voice and character which somehow brought to mind Gaston from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" (whose song in the movie is certainly derived from Gilbert & Sullivan's style!), his facial expressions were very effective. And although he was not always easy to hear, he delivered the rapid patter lyrics with great ease. Rounding out the cast was Peter Weller, whose non-singing but finger-wiggling, moustache-preening, finger-licking portrayal of Bunthorne's Solicitor had me in stitches. Any G&S fan knows that the chorus is hardly a dispensible part of their works, and not to be scoffed at. Both the women's chorus and the men's chorus were impressive, and each excelled where expected: the women displayed smooth phrasing and tone, and the men proved to be up to both the choreographed foot-work as well as the crisp diction. A colorful feather in producer Barbara Heroux's cap, the production combined all the elements beautifully: Peter Crompton's sets, particularly the wonderful backdrop of a cloud-speckled sky in the second act, worked perfectly with Melissa Wortman's costumes and Ellen Brooks' lighting, and Monroe Kanouse led the Lamplighters Orchestra with just the right subtlety and flair, rarely overpowering the singers, and shining especially in the overture — wonderfully executing the tricky syncopations in "If Saphir I choose to marry" — and in the Finale. Anyone looking for wonderful light-hearted fun but not afraid of some big belly-laughs can see this production in its second run of performances in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center, February 8-17. (John Kendall Bailey is the founder and music director of the Berkeley Lyric Opera and a conductor, composer, lecturer, baritone, oboist, and pianist.) ©2002 John Kendall Bailey, all rights reserved |