No 41 -- Spring 1994 Edited by Michael Walters
A curious thing seems to be happening to the central London operatic societies. While retaining their names they seem to be forming a "federation" in that all the soloists for Grosvenor, Philbeach and BTLLOG appear to be the same people. Whatever the ethics of this sort of situation, it has certainly worked to the advantage of this company, who, when I first saw them many years ago, were just incompetent, with no one who could sing or act. Now they are able to give a performance of a standard which can be compared and criticised with the best of amateur G&S. The team of Shane Collins and Peter Mills as adaptors, and the former as director indicated that it would be unconventional, and it was. TRIAL was set in the "wild west" while SORCERER took place among the oil-barons of "Dallas". Apart from some necessary alterations to the words to fit the location, nothing was altered. The music was performed as written, the singers spoke and sang with quite well maintained American accents, and all the staging and business was appropriate to the altered setting. There was nothing extraneous, as there has been in the DOC presentations. Both the productions worked brilliantly as theatre, in a way that the same collaborators' "Robin Hood" IOLANTHE had not done, because here the plot did not have to be stretched and bent to breaking point in order to fit the altered setting.
TRIAL was set in a saloon in Calamity Gulch where the Marshall is to try Wyatt (Edwin) for his jilting of Angelina, who is accompanied, not by bridesmaids, but by her troop of "entertainers" called Angelina's Angels. The weakest voice was that of the Judge/Marshall (Colin Phillips) but he looked the part to perfection, huge and imposing, and his singing was never less than adequate. The Defendant (Matthew Wyles) had a strong, clean, powerful tenor voice of professional quality, and looked just like a gambler. The Counsel (Julian Marland) was harsher and more acid, but it fitted the idiom well. Richard Arthur played the Usher as a bar-room tough guy, straight up and down. All the cast caught the characterisations to perfection, and could all have come straight in from a western movie. It was a happy idea to have the Plaintiff's reluctance to be comforted by the Foreman (Stephen Lowes) due to his apparent affliction by B.O. As the Plaintiff herself, the alto Gloria Griffiths took over at short notice due to the indisposition of Sue Morton. Miss Griffiths' ample proportions suited the blousy, busty interpretation of the Plaintiff admirably. There were not too many alterations to the text, though I felt some were probably gratuitous, and not strictly necessary (this goes for SORCERER too). The art in doing something like this surely lies in seeing how few changes to the text are necessary? I could not remember, or indeed make out all the alterations, but on the whole the cast seemed to cope with them extremely well. I noted that on one occasion the Defendant referred to himself as Edwin instead of his new persona of Wyatt. Oops!
SORCERER: The opera got off to a slightly less good start than TRIAL because the 2 Partletts who open the piece were the two weakest members of the cast. Caress (Jacqui Segal) was a virtual nonentity who tended to sing out of tune, while her mother Magnolia (Mona Kirianova) did not quite get the easy relaxed style necessary for "a southern Belle" and overacted. The rest of the cast were superb. Michael Crow (Marvin Pointdextre) was smooth and plausible. Gloria Griffiths (Sapphire Sangazure) resembled a three masted galleon under full sail. Their duet ("Welcome joy") was particularly successful, sung as an "olde English" number, sans accents. "Deliverance" Daly (Craig Hendry) was an excellent "southern preacher", with an accent with sounded perfectly authentic to me. Harvey Kesselman was "J.R." Wells, an English magician, which seemed a little difficult to reconcile with the Dallas setting, but he delivered his part convincingly. However, his patter-song was a trifle disappointing, being taken at a rather slow pace, indicating that he is not really a patter-man. The Notary virtually disappeared, his Act 1 lines being sung by a lawyer-like chap (an un-named member of the chorus). In Act 2, the old man with whom Caress (Constance) falls in love, was played by Mike Roberts, a member of the chorus, but conspicuous for being confined to a wheelchair. Strong performances, too, came from Elaine Truman (Darlene Sangazure) and Matthew Wyles (Dexter Pointdextre).
Everyone acted and behaved in a thoroughly "Dallas"-like way, but beyond that there was little actual business, and indeed none was needed. The actors simply behaved as fitted the situation and the character. Gloria Griffiths came into her own in the duet with Wells, her boobs practically spilling out of her neglig, and amorously patting the bottom and stroking the legs of a nude male statue. Line alterations like "Love me, I'll stick tumbleweeds in my hair" seemed reasonable under the circumstances!
MICHAEL WALTERS
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