Trial and Tribulation

AN AUNT ONCE TOLD me that after seeing Gone With the Wind for the 20th time, her heart still went aflutter when Rhett walked out the door at the end. And a friend of mine confessed that after seven viewings she still was grossed out by Harold's bizarre suicide attempts in Harold and Maude. Now I too belong to their fan club of repetition. After seeing HMS Pinafore--a Gilbert and Sullivan musical comedy--for the sixth time. I still thoroughly basked in its bubbly brilliance.

Even one who never tires of a show like Gilbert and Sullivan's musical, HMS Pinafore, recognizes that it often suffers from amateurish performances. Usually such reproductions are filled with stilted stunts and puny actors drowned out by the bass violin, choppy set changes, dull staging. Nonetheless, most Gilbert and Sullivan shows never lose their musical vibrance or lyrical hilarity--all that's needed is singers strong enough to enunciate the clever lines and be heard above the orchestra. But the Harvard Gilbert and Sullivan Players production of HMS Pinafore and the one-act Trial by Jury surpass all expectations. Innovative staging, talented singers, and lead actors who combine excellent stage presence with resounding, clear voices help the shows retain the delightful, electric power they have had ever since they were first performed on the British stage.

The evening of classic G&S fare begins with the one-act Trial by Jury, which features cleverly staged dancing by the chorus of jurors and choruses of bridesmaids and women in court. The 1940s-style costumes adorn the simply set stage of a courtroom with judge's stand and Juror's box.

Unfolding simply, the silly plot follows the courtroom encounter of a woman (Sarah Downs) trying to prosecute her chicken-hearted ex-fiance (William Monnen) for breaking off their engagement. Particularly delightful is Dennis Crowley as the bespectacled judge who falls helplessly in love with Angelina, the plaintiff. Crowley's sparkling voice and facial expressions ripple throughout the stage, especially excelling in his solo about why he became a judge.

Certain staging devices separate this rendition of Trial by Jury from other mundane productions. The four-part sequence between the judge, the defendant. Angelina, and Angelina's counsel (Michael Bank) shows the singers' virtuosity as they gleefully harmonize--having them sing as if into a radio microphone is particularly effective. By the one-act's resolution, the audience has been successfully primed for the main-course dish to follow.

After a brisk set change and excellent overture from the fine orchestra conducted by Roger Grodsky, the scene unfolds aboard the deck of the ship HMS Planfore. The audience stands and sings "God Bless the Queen"--even an anti-British revolutionary would momentarily shed hostility towards the English monarchy.

HMS Pinafore is so often performed that stiff, prepped-out productions usually mar it, or else wisecracks and stants hide the memorable lyrics and melodies. Yet musical director Grodsky, stage director Kevin Fennessy, and choreographer Grace Napier blend their skills to enhance the show's "sun-never-sets" mystique.

Its momentum never waning, the cast easily metamorphoses during the two-hour Pinafore production: Trial by Jury's defendant, played by Monnen, becomes Pinafore's handsome young hero, Ralph Rackstraw. Crowley assumes another leadership position as the ship's Captain Corcoran, and a newcomer to the evening's spectacle, Sebastian Knowles, plays the pompous Sir Joseph Porter. All three men, along with Craig Bierko as Dick Deadeye and Jo Milroy as Little Buttercup, give the evening's most superb performances. Crowley successively displays the Captain's frustrations in trying to convince his daughter Josephine (Nancy Fatzick) to marry Sir Joseph. Countering the Captain's well-meaning intentions, the lowly seaman hero Ralph Rackstraw falls passionately in love with Josephine. Monnen plays the foiled lover with the proper heaving chest and perpetually sighing demeanor, and his gentle tenor complements his melodramatic physical presence.

Knowles as the supercilious, genteel Sir Joseph and Bierko as the disgustingly disfigured seafarer Dick Deadeye play magnificently. Knowles, last seen as Figaro in the Lowell House Opera production of The Marriage of Figaro, gives a more distinguished performance this time: His production is impeccable and his stage presence especially his bulging eyes--is extraordinary, Bierko's loud, clear baritone, his bizarre facial contortions, and his dangling motions convey, in the best deadpan performance of the evening, Deadeye's extraordinary despicability and grossness.

As Buttercup, Milroy exhibits the strongest female voice, with her resounding alto in the famous song, "Sweet Little Buttercup." Other successful numbers include Sir Joseph's description of his rise to the first admiralty of the navy--accompanied by his sister, cousins, and his aunts--and the Captain and Deadeye dust, "Merry Maid and the Tar," which goes into encore verses.

One scene, especially, reveals the coordination that should always accompany Pinafore: the night-time scene, as Deadeye and the Captain foil Ralph and Josephine's attempt to clope--much to the surprise of the crew and Sir Joseph. The scene features the downstage, semi-hidden voices of Deadeye and the Captain and the upstage, tiptoed actions of the others. By the scene's climax, a delightful rapport develops among the full company as the Captain vents his anger on Dick and then Sir Joseph on the Captain.

In the finale, the characters pass around English flags and wave them as they sing the last song. That final touch rounds off a perfectly exquisite evening of G&S--one leaves humming the show's most memorable melodies, twanging with English accents, eagerly awaiting a seventh and yet an eighth opportunity to see the show.