Aging better than anybody 132 years old has any right to, the Gilbert and Sullivan Players took the old light opera H.M.S. Pinafore for a sea voyage at City Center. and I remebered all I loved about the titanic writers of British one step ahead of Music Hall and entertainment. ANd everything I didn’t.
This buoyant story of love among the classes in Victorian England is a fun filled two hour trip, filled with kindly Captains and royalty with an an girl entourage and two couples of different classes trying to match up. And a chorus of sailors ready to sing at the slightest opportunity.
It, like the Gondoliers and Trial By Jury, both of which I was in at High School, is a blast to sing and perform. There are roles for everyone, and it is all good fun. Watching it is a little trickier so many years later. The songs are fine but some not so much and while I realize even the ballads are fine pieces of parody, I can’t quite HEAR that they are fine pieces of parody.
Pinafore is the story of a Captain’s daughter, promised an Admiral, who falls for a lowly sailor. Don’t worry true love prevails and City center and the Gilbert And Sullivan Players and able hands at this sortta stuff more than making up for the somewhat High Schooly set design.
The singing is excellent and an especially congrats to the routund peddler Buttercup, a superb comic and singer who gets all of everything she sings, and solves the dilemna with an higly unlikely solution.
I hope a hundred years from now people are still chuckling over the comedic twists of Gilbert and Sullivan.