No 42 -- Summer 1994 Edited by Michael Walters
Generally G&S are a group founded in 1986 out of the defunct Retford Amateur Operatic Society. A large number of personnel made the move from one group to the other, where, under the musical direction of Martin Yates, they have specialised in musically more "authentic" G&S than many societies. As well as one or two shows each year they give regular concert performances and are not afraid to venture into the more distant realms of Sullivan alone, Bizet or a dash of Verdi. Hence their name.
It was not just their enterprise which tempted me to a round trip of 360 miles in an evening - including an appalling meal in a Little Chef somewhere up the A1 - but the fact that to fill out a show which normally needs a curtain-raiser to give the punters their money's worth, Producer and MD had decided to include the recently-discovered Thespis ballet music as an entertainment danced for Sir Joseph at his first appearance on board. We could thus judge whether the 5 movements really hang together as a ballet suite (the New DOC CD not having then appeared) and whether anything can be done with them in front of an audience.
The first thing to be said about the Majestic Theatre is that it isn't. It is an Edwardian municipal box with a surprisingly spacious and well-raked circle, with curtains, walls, plasterwork and upholstery, all in a uniform shade of faded pillar-box red. Its unique and enlivening feature is the series of larger-than-life plaster mermaids who hold up the roof, and whose delicate flesh tints and fish scales provide a welcome contrast. Onstage it suffers from shortage of room, not helped by Peter Faulkner's set which provided a capacious captain's bridge at the expense of losing a good third of the acting area stage right.
Two pleasant old theatrical customs were maintained. The half of the audience who were in their seats when the Overture began chattered noisily all through it, while the half who still had their seats to find made even more noise as they greeted (and in some cases trod on) their friends in the attempt. When the curtain went up and anything important was being sung on stage this was done in near-blackout while the principals did their best to work with follow spots.
A chorus of ten men and twenty ladies, and a band of 23 (including cornets rather than trumpets), tackled the musical side of things with great verve, good diction and obvious enjoyment, as one would expect under Martin Yates' baton. The producer, Stephen Walker, has long experience as an actor and director of spoken drama but most of his musical work has been done in modern musicals rather than nineteenth-century opera. Faced with a cast who have been singing together in the same sort of parts for a number of years, he played safe and allowed them to get on with things in the same style they had no doubt always used before. Thus we had a stock jolly Bosun, a stock innocent tenor, a stock OTT Deadeye, and so on.
I would single out Joan Self (Josephine), who has wide experience in the world of oratorio as well as opera and on the concert platform in Europe as well as the U.K. As you might expect, the discipline and assurance showed through. The quality of her voice and performance kept the audience quiet (no mean feat) and "The hours creep on", with its effortless top C, was thrilling.
Twenty years ago I used to like John Reed - most of the D'Oyly Carte performances I saw were simply so dull he was the only living thing on stage - but if you are playing Sir Joseph, you are playing Sir Joseph, not Mr. Reed. Kevin Ogden is probably no older than I am, and probably basing his comic ideas on other performances which in turn have been based on memories of J.R. The producer seemed to have colluded with this approach as for the Bells Trio we not only had all the Reed-isms, but a running gag with bells, the last one taller than himself and impossible to lift, and finally a church bell-rope suspended from the flies which of course pulled him up into the air. The audience loved it - but if Generally G&S is in the business of educating its audiences about G&S musically then they ought to do so dramatic-ally as well. Having seen Mr. Ogden as Grigg in a concert CONTRABANDISTA, where of course there is no "tradition", I'd had high hopes. He can act, and he can be funny, so please could he think again next time?
Once Sir Joseph was aboard there was some invented dialogue along the lines of "Boy have we gotta surprise for you!!" with the Captain as a Leonard Sachs music-hall chairman, before he and the other principals retreated to the bridge, creating a space just big enough for five girls to stand with their arms outstretched. Shelley Harvey, Katie Hunt, Angela Chester, Elaine Rix and Claire Draper, choreographed by Sue Benson, then did what they could in the space provided. The point about the THESPIS ballet, and all the other operatic ballets on which it is based, is that it is an opportunity for a large chorus and several solo dancers to show off their skills in a wide-ranging number of different styles. Hence there is a fast introduction, a slow and graceful piece, a brisk waltz, a comic turn, and a general galop. For the first three of these the girls varied their movements more or less in keeping with the spirit of the music, but there simply wasn't enough room or enough of them to achieve a spectacle. The slow Pas de Chles particularly suffered - a "shawl dance" presumably requires swooping and expressive movements with yards of free-flying material. If they'd tried that they would have tied the chorus in knots. The comic scene was well interpreted, giving Deadeye a chance to chase the girls in a lumbering sort of way, and it was a good but obvious idea to have the entire cast join in the final galop - but by the time they were all in the main acting area there was literally no room to do more than hop from one foot to the next. On the whole an experiment worth trying, but it proved that producers need to be careful how they approach things. If something is meant to be spectacular there is no point in doing it just because it is in the score when you have no room, no money and no specialist expertise. I would advise 99 amateur societies out of 100 to omit the whole of the drawing room scene in Utopia for precisely the same reason. The programme suggested that the production team thought they have found the ideal resting place for the ballet in the whole G&S canon, and that other societies will no doubt try it out in other places. Speaking as the guy who found the lost chord in this context I can only hope that neither of these statements proves true.
SELWYN TILLETT
[I heartily concur with the sentiments expressed. It may interest readers to know that the idea of performing a ballet at this point in PINAFORE is by no means new. As long as 20 years ago, I saw just such a ballet (using, if I recall, non G&S music) in an otherwise undistinguished and totally forgettable production in Tring. It was introduced in much the same way - "Sir Joseph, please step this way and see the entertainment we've laid on for you" or words to that effect. All I can recall of the ballet is that one of the dancers was a man in a kilt with a positively obscene sporran! Lengthening PINAFORE does not in fact improve it, it destroys the dramatic integrity of the play, and the plot is far too thin to sustain padding. The obvious resting place for the Thespis ballet music is in a production of THESPIS! Ed.]
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