No 41 -- Spring 1994 Edited by Michael Walters
As last year, there was no "chorus", all the members of the company were given names and individual character-identities, which may be quite fun for them, but tends to be confusing for anyone in the audience who is not a G&S expert! Both productions (by 2 different directors) were inventive, but, as last year, there was a tendency for this to be overdone. It was as though the director of PINAFORE had forgotten that his piece was to be preceeded by TRIAL and put in so much action, business and additional material that the curtain did not fall till after 11pm., 3 and a half hours is really too long for a G&S evening.
TRIAL was brilliantly directed by Amanda Pask and costumed as ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The director obviously knew Alice backwards, and had imaginatively woven in virtually every character in the book and an episode from almost every chapter. The Judge was the King of Hearts, the Usher the White Rabbit, the Defendant the Knave of Hearts, a Parrot the Counsel, a frog the Foreman of the Jury. Angelina was still Angelina, though of course she married the King at the end, and presumably became the Queen of Hearts! Almost everyone else was there: the Caterpillar (Guy Middlemiss) was recorder of the Court, busily writing all the way through, with a peacock-feather quill pen. The Mad Hatter (John Tripp) and the March Hare (Martin Raftery) were there, as was the Dormouse (Lin Yi-Ming) symbolically put into a teapot at the end. There was a guinea pig who stubbornly persisted in sitting on the wrong side of the court although repeatedly led back by the White Rabbit, eventually to be "suppressed" as in the book. The Duchess (Susan Foister) had a baby on her knee which she fed with pepper, and turned out to be the Defendant's "other woman". It was all quite ingeniously worked out, brilliantly executed, and hysterically funny. Unfortunately there were some voices in the cast who were not up to the standard the Society has set for itself in the past. Philip Hollman, though he looked just right and acted with intelligence, simply does not possess the vocal volume to sustain a part of the size of the Judge, and was not helped by being stuck at the back of the stage for most of the action of the piece, where on occasions he was almost inaudible at points in the action where the Judge should dominate. It was good to see Clive Paget (Usher) back on stage, even though the most distinctive aspects of a Clive performance, his expressive face and eyes, were lost behind the White Rabbit's make up. He was a stolid and robust rodent, whereas I have always imagined the White Rabbit as a rather more fussy, dithery, excitable creature. It was a happy idea, however, to have him hop on the two sets of triple chords in the intro. Nevertheless, the important thing about the White Rabbit is that he should be endearing - and he was. Adrian Cave was a suave wolfish Defendant (Knave of Hearts). He made a near-fluff in "O gentlemen listen I pray", but with great presence of mind got himself out of it, so that it was barely noticeable, except to those very familiar with the text. Joanna Tripp as the Parrot (Counsel) sang firmly and reliably. She had been indisposed for several days during the run, and the veteran Bill White, who had gone down to see the show as a member of the audience, was pressed into service as Lord High Substitute. Susan Wright was a fluent Angelina and Derek Hirst as the Frog Foreman completed the cast. The costumes designed by Irianwen Rees, were excellent and colourful, as was the make-up, the costumes had evidently been carefully designed, and in many cases bore a commendable resemblance to the Tenniel illustrations.
PINAFORE. Clive Paget gave PINAFORE basically the same treatment that he had given last year's RUDDIGORE, but ironically it was both less and more so. Less so in that there was less frenetic business which left one dazed and bemused. More so, in that there was so much material added that the show in places became tedious. The scene alternated between the deck of the ship and the Captain's cabin, the necessary scene changes involved being covered by a talented quartette singing sea shanties. These were very fine, but there were far too many of them, and they slowed up the action of the opera disastrously. The last one in Act 1, between "Refrain audacious tar" and the finale was particularly indefensible, as it totally destroyed the musical and dramatic tension, this treatment might have worked if PINAFORE had been played on its own, or if TRIAL had come after, not before. As it was, one was becoming very tired by Act 2, and it was difficult not to "allow one's attention to wander".
During the overture, the canons were primed and fired, several Portsmouth drabs came on stage to philander with the crew, and a ship's doctor (Philip Hollman) came on to "physic" the crew. One had a tooth extracted with a villainous pair of forceps, the ship's cook (Lin Yi-Ming) who had a sore finger and had his hand sawn off to be replaced by a hook, an operation to which his only response was an inscrutible Chinese smile. All this was quite interesting, but it has little to do with the opera, and too much of it has the effect of dividing up the opera into a series of disconnected episodes, all excellent in themselves, but causing the play to lack an overall coherence. One should not, however, blame Clive Paget, or any other director of an amateur production, too much for this, in view of the inexcrable example set by current professional productions of Gilbert and Sullivan.
The lack of overall coherence was nowhere better demonstrated than in the scene between Ralph and Josephine in Act 1, leading up to the duet. In isolation, this was the finest thing in the opera, but in context its seriousness was rather out of step with the ambience of the rest of the production. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have altered it. Ian Ellery turned in the best performance of his career to date, as Ralph. The nervousness and self-consciousness that affected earlier portrayals had gone, and he seems set fair to become a very fine straight actor. He has developed the ability and confidence to stand still on stage and without moving a muscle of his face, allow emotion and pain to be written all over it. For the first time he bared his heart to the audience (Unfortunately, few in the auditorium were receptive enough to perceive this). He has also evidently done a lot of work on his voice, which has improved beyond recognition. He was helped by the sensitive portrayal of Josephine by Lyanne Iveson, who managed the difficult feat in this scene of allowing her voice simultaneously to portray the peremptory dismissal of her lover, and the tenderness she really felt for him. Most Josephines tend to concentrate on the sternness in this scene, showing the love they feel for Ralph in other scenes. I cannot recall anyone else who was able to portray both at the same time. The key points in the scene as I recall them, were, that after she said "You shall not wait long" Josephine turned and went upstage for a few moments as though struggling with herself before turning and coming down to say "Your proffered love I haughtily reject", etc., but instead of this being said agressively as is customary, it was said almost tenderly, so that it was clear she did not mean a word of it, but was still struggling with herself. During Ralph's verse in the duet, Ian sank into a chair to sing "my heart with anguish torn" while she moved impulsively up behind him as though to offer some comfort, but restrained herself from doing so. During the course of the duet he presented her with a flower (from the vase on the Captain's table) which she looked at and then cast away. At the end of the duet, he picked up the flower and gave it to her again, and this time she exited with it in her hand.
As Corcoran, Martin Raftery had fewer opportunities than he had had last year as Sir Despard, but he sang excellently and delivered his dialogue impeccably. By far the weakest of the cast was Thomas Monk as Sir Joseph. He was vocally adequate, but quite unequipped for the histrionic demands of the role. John Franks was quite satisfactory as the Bosun. John Tripp looked excellently horrible (without being ridiculously so) as Deadeye, and acted and sang with this admirable performer's usual conscientiousness. The timing of "foiled - foiled - foiled" (the last word delivered from beneath the boat cloak), was excellent. During Act 1 Deadeye was "keel-hauled" an operation which took considerable time. On recovering he spat a mouthful of sea-water over the Bosun.
Katina Dawe played Hebe as a "refined" lady. Her dialogue was restored, the first part of the 2 scenes (the "crushed again" scene) being staged in the Captain's cabin with Sir Joseph's valet, Withers (Guy Middlemiss) playing the piano (a toy one) while Hebe sang "Early one morning" in a very prissy voice. Verses of this interrupted the dialogue and was very cleverly staged. At one point Sir Joseph's patience gave out and he slammed the piano lid down on Wither's fingers. The latter rushed in distress to Hebe who merely remarked in a matter-of-fact way "Crushed". Superb!
Susan Foister was a busty, blowsy Buttercup, amply endowed, with a very low cut dress and a large beauty spot on the right one. I was waiting hopefully (but vainly) for it to come off on someone - such as the Bosun, who had his face pulled right into the heart of her bosom. It was a rich performance of a low-class slut with a heart of gold, capitally sung and acted. PINAFORE was costumed (as last time at Budleigh) in Regency dress, with powdered wigs for Corcoran and the ship's chaplain (Dave Tonnison) while Sir Joseph was attired rather like the Prince Regent himself in curly blonde wig, beauty spot and fancy dress. The reason for this was not clear, nor was the denoument with someone rushing in with a newspaper to announce that Nelson had lost an arm in battle.
MICHAEL WALTERS
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