From p00629@psilink.com Fri Nov 12 06:48:53 1993 Date: Thu, 11 Nov 93 20:17:02 -0800 To: "Alex Feldman" From: "James M. Farron" Subject: BESTGAS.REV The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan at The Woodstock (IL) Opera House The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan appeared at the Woodstock Opera House last March 27th, to what certainly seemed to be an appreciative audience--I know the people I was with had a good time! As always, this group did a grand show, and prove that a company does not need great costumes or scenery, but great performers, to really do G&S credit. This time around, the Best of G&S consisted of David Mackie on piano, Geoffrey Shovelton, Alistair Donkin, Kenneth Sandford, Lorraine Daniels, and newcomer to the group Penelope Cope (her bio in the program showed she was not a newcomer to G&S, however. It said there that she also had the distinction of recording "Poor Wand'ring One" with the London Symphony Orchestra for Stephen Spielberg's film An American Tail). The company sang something from all the operas but Thespis (understandably) and Trial by Jury, did scenes from Patience, Mikado, and Yeomen, and Geoffrey Shovelton told a number of funny stories about the Original D'Oyly Carte company. The funny stories are my favorite part of the show, and as I recall, this is how they went. Geoffrey Shovelton tells them much better than I do, but they're too good to keep quiet. In any event, he told the audience about the time in Iolanthe when the peers were all kneeling to Phyllis in a line across the stage, and the one on the end fell over on the one next to him. They went down like dominoes until they reached the peer on the other end (who, as it turns out, was the smallest in the bunch). He managed to catch himself falling, and ended up holding up the whole line of peers. Another story accompanied the scene from Yeomen. As we know, at one point an arquebus is shot off. In order to get the right kind of sound, the Original D'Oyly Carte would hang a bombtub in the flys of the theater where they performed. At the right time, the explosive would go off in the tub and make the sound of a shot. In one theater, the stage hands would play cards above the stage during the performances. You can guess what happened: when the explosion went off at that theater, somebody above the stage let out a yell, and cards rained down upon the actors. It's a little hard to ad lib around an occurrence like that, especially in Yeomen. The scenes the company did were very funny (when they were supposed to be). Donkin and Sandford put on silly wigs and gave the "battle of the poets" exchange preceding "When I Go Out of Door", from Patience, and the ladies of the group gave the Patience/Lady Angela discussion of Patience's love life. Now, until this evening, I had never heard of Penelope Cope, but at this point she did something that has rarely been heard among soprano leads in the Midwest. She is the first one I have heard in some time who didn't seem to think a soprano lead's speaking voice should sound like a mouse being stepped on! It was so refreshing to hear a Patience who talked like a human being! I hope she gets an opportunity to spread this innovation throughout the U.S.: the Midwest sure need the exposure! The group also gave the part in Yeomen where Fairfax, Phoebe, and Elsie teach Jack Point how to woo ("A Man who would Woo"/"When a Wooer goes A-Wooing"). When they finished, the auditorium was dead-silent until the music ended. Now that's what I call a great performance of Yeomen! They did a fine job, and as I always say, if The Best of G&S gets to your neighborhood, you ought to go see them because they are worth the seeing. By the way, the very enjoyable recording the company made (that we talked about last year) was available at the theater, and as far as we know is still available for $10.00 from Byers, Schwalbe and Associates, One Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003 ([212] 260-3320). There was one other funny thing that happened that is too good to leave alone. One of the reasons the Best of G&S can do such a good show is because, when appropriate, they encourage audience participation. One of the ways they do it is by getting the audience to sing the chorus part of "I am the very model of a modern major-general". Geoffrey Shovelton tells the audience how annoyed Alistair Donkin gets if they don't sing, so to sing good and loud or Mr. Donkin will chew him out. Well, that night, there was some lady in the balcony with a distinctive laugh (it sounds like Hopalong Cassidy's, and if you don't know how he laughed, it's a little like hearing a car going over rumble strips) who found that business terribly funny. Needless to say, the audience did not sing the chorus part loudly enough, Donkin called Shovelton out, pointed at the balcony, and exclaimed, "That young lady made more noise laughing than the whole audience did singing!" Then everyone was laughing. Now, ordinarily, repeating such story might be a great embarrassment to somebody, but it turned out that laughi- ng lady was none other than our own Secretary/Archivist Sarah Cole, who thought the remark was pretty funny. "Anything within reason to help out G&S performers," as she says. We'll all look forward to helping out The Best of G&S again! [This article appeared in Issue 26 (March 1990) of Precious Nonsense, the newsletter of the Midwestern Gilbert & Sullivan Society. Posted by permission of Sarah Cole, Society Secretary/Archivist. For information on Society membership write to: The Midwestern Gilbert & Sullivan Society, c/o Miss Sarah Cole, 613 W. State St., North Aurora, IL 60542-1538.]