No 41 -- Spring 1994 Edited by Michael Walters
This proved to be very different from the G&S production I had seen the previous weekend in Glasgow. Musically the performance was excellent, but with Michael Withers in control it could hardly have been otherwise. Act 1 was set on a fairly conventional but sparse sea-shore, with the sea represented by billowing curtains laid on the floor upstage right. The pirates arrived and departed in a small boat pushed in from the wings. They were very boisterous, dressed in rather scruffy trousers and torn jackets of indeterminate period. Act 2 depicted an excellent temple (but not very ruined!) with two beds of pink sunflowers, behind which the pirates hid during "Softly sighing". Ruth was a bag woman, and if the reactions of the rest of the cast were to be believed, rather malodorous. Frederic was dressed in a rather strange floppy white costume with big sleeves gathered at the wrists. The girls wore greys and urk-greens and were a temperance brigade. Mabel was a big girl both fore and aft, and wore a white silk blouse over tight red leather trousers for Act 1. This costume showed off her ample buttocks, from which Frederic's hands were never very far. The Major-General and Sergeant of Police were conventionally dressed. The costumes were from Utopia Costumes.
The Pirate King (Ian Hollamby) was a huge man with a big booming voice, who leaped about with an agility remarkable for a man of his size. Frederic (Michael Hollands) was doubtfully a tenor, but acted with an animation and abandon which made his whole performance a joy. There was a lot of horseplay and sexual innuendo with the girls and with Mabel during "Poor wandering one" in which he was alternatively manhandled by the girls, and passionately clasped by Mabel, his face buried in her ample bosom. His voice was clear and warm, but of baritonal quality. Mabel (Susan Lea) despite her size, had a voice of silver clarity. In Act 2 she changed into a white silk trouser suit to match Frederic.
On the whole, there was little characterisation, but this scarcely mattered, the attack and dynamism of the production kept things from ever becoming dull. The pirates were rumbustious, frequently indulging in fisticuffs. For their Act 2 entrance, they wore black raincoats over what seemed to be white stockings, which was puzzling, until Ruth announced "they are all noblemen who have gone wrong" when they all flung off their coats to reveal themselves dressed in the white satin doublets and hose of Iolanthe peers. Robes and coronets were then handed out and donned. Very droll, so much more amusing than the D'Oyly Carte's inane idea of bringing Queen Victoria on stage.
The performance was very fast moving (with no encores) - so that it ran for barely 2 hours and 10 minutes including the interval. The treatment of Ruth was very cruel, but it made a particularly poignant ending to the opera, when, after handing out the coronets and robes, she picked up her bags, and, as the rest of the company danced off (presumably to get married) Ruth wandered off into the darkness, forgotten and alone. Dorothy Thompson gave a superb performance, catching the character of the ugly, dirty, smelly old woman to perfection. One of the main virtues of the production was the lively blocking and movement, and it is hard to be sure how much was due to the producer, Roger Clow, and how much to the Choreographer Barry Dowden (also Major General).
MICHAEL WALTERS
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