No 41 -- Spring 1994 Edited by Michael Walters
AOC combines two characteristics which make their productions unfailingly enjoyable: a backbone of experienced performers (some approaching the Dummkopfian "thirty seasons"), and an imaginative approach to staging & production methods. One could have been forgiven, though, for wondering what was happening when the curtain rose on a splendid backdrop of a rugged shoreline, and PINAFORE began with a chorus of "Climbing over rocky mountain"! - in a lively rendering by a chorus which included some very good dancers, and all charmingly arrayed in dresses of various shades of blue. And when this was followed by the familiar PIRATES dialogue, virtually unaltered except for the replacement of "Papa" by "Sir Joseph" and the omission of the reference to servants arriving with the luncheon, AND the musical exchange "Stop, ladies, pray!" - "A man!", some of the audience must have thought they'd come on the wrong night. But now enter the "man" to announce "Yes, 'tis I, your beloved brother, cousin and nephew", and to summon the ladies to accompany him on board H.M.S. Pinafore - "The Captain has a very attractive daughter, but I want a second - no, a forty-second opinion on the little filly before I bestow my hand on her" - at which Cousin Hebe burst into tears.
Quite a novel opening! And this was just one of several additions designed, as a note in the programme explained, to extend the opera to the length of an evening's performance, and to give the ladies of the company more to do. A full-scale dance number, using the Ruddigore hornpipe and the old traditional hornpipe tune, was introduced in the middle of Sir Joseph's inspection of the crew (Sir Joseph clumsily following steps performed by expert dancers among the sailors); a clever piece of dialogue led into "In sailing over life's ocean wide", with rewritten words sung to Josephine by Hebe, Edith (yes) and the Boatswain to persuade her to follow her heart's dictates and reject Sir Joseph, and Buttercup's final revelation led the whole cast to launch into "A nice dilemma we have here".
Was it worth it? Well, it gave us more G&S for our money, and from the cast's point of view it fulfilled the producer's intention. But dramatically the interpolations were all irrelevant - nothing in the story was changed - and the Ruddigore trio in particular had quite a jarring effect musically because of the vast difference in musical style between the two operas. Each G&S score is an integrated whole with its very individual character - to transfer a number from one opera to another is bound to be risky.
Musical revisions, then, accepted with reservations. Stageing - almost uniformly good. The centrepiece was a huge built-up model of the prow of a ship, on which the sailors performed their opening chorus (the almost is because, spacious thought it was, it was really too cramped for a full chorus; and Deadeye's later entrance lost most of its usual effect). Buttercup entered in a rowing boat (called Ranunculus) from which she was hoisted onto the ship. The whole structure was rotated through ninety degrees for Ralph to sing his solo from the prow; and then through another ninety to reveal that the other side was open and furnished with steps via which the cast descended to the main stage. Very ingenious, neatly managed, and attention-catching.
As to the cast: Gordon and Ilona Strachan, both seasoned performers, partnered each other as a fine commanding Captain and a really "plump and pleasing" Buttercup. I've seen Brian McDonald do better with less promising parts than Sir Joseph: relying a bit too much on a hairstyle and make-up that suggested Restoration comedy rather than a Victorian nouveau-riche, he played in an unusually low-key manner, giving Sir Joseph an aristocratic hauteur but falling short of suggesting the essential fact about the character - that the aristocratic facade is assumed by an incompetent jumped-up fraud. Still, he too is a seasoned performer, and his natural humour couldn't fail to please. Valerie Wilson (Josephine) had a voice that tended to sound a bit shrill, but she gave a nice dramatic performance - a young, fiery Josephine, consumed with passion but determined to try and hold it in check. Martin Rudge (Ralph) certainly had a good voice, but a romantic hero shouldn't have a permanent grin, and should attain to the heights of passion more than once or twice in an evening. Dick Deadeye in the person of Archie Mitchell looked suitably ferocious with a frightful scar extending above and below his eye patch, gave a fine villainous performance, and obviously enjoyed taking personal responsibility for manhandling Ralph off to the dungeon. Why, though, did he emerge from a barrel to confront the Captain in Act 2, and return there between his verses of the duet? Linda Slessor's bright, vivacious manner served her well in the enlarged part of Hebe: her moment of glory was the "Did you hear him?" solo, which she sang in a positively hysterical state. Jim Hunter as the Boatswain, I'm sorry to say, was a nonentity - one of the best minor parts in the canon totally wasted.
DERRICK McCLURE
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