The glorious Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, "H.M.S. Pinafore," sailed up the Mississippi yesterday, gathering "Showboat" and the Goldenrod show boat in its wake before it docked at the Touhill Performing Arts Center and added a perfect ending to a perfect early-spring day.
NYGASP, or the New York Gilbert And Sullivan Players, is a group very strong in music and acting, strong enough in dance and with the intelligence to play the work of the great English musical theater creators in perfect light-hearted manner, emphasizing the humor of the book, the superb trickiness of the lyrics and the farcical style of the subject matter.
The group repeats today, at 3 p.m., with its final St. Louis performance. Run, don't walk.
NYGASP (love the acronym) is a strong professional group, a full Equity company, run by Albert Bergerert, one of its founders in 1974. He also directs, runs auditions and wears a Cabernet Sauvignon-colored bow tie as he conducts the pit orchestra. Yes, a real pit orchestra that plays a real overture. The singers, many who also sing with opera companies, are excellent, whether individually or in groups, and while I might have missed something, I saw no miking, which the Touhill's excellent acoustics happily made unnecessary.
The story, poking fun at a foppish social climber who rises to become the First Lord of the Admiralty (comparable to the American Secretary of the Navy), is piled high with weird coincidences, marital and nursery mix-ups and six marriages (well, there are three couples, but six people get married). And speaking of English writers, it's like a Shakespeare comedy, where everyone gets married at the end.
Stephen Quint is the Rt. Hon. (Right Honorable) Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. (Knight Commander of the Bath), and the little guy with the white wig is terrific, especially on the patter songs, long a G&S trademark. He also clowns, dances and generally has a good time. So do the other cast members, if to a lesser degree because of insistence by the script and the director.
Laurelyn Watson Chase is a delight as Josephine, the captain's daughter who is betrothed to Porter, but loves able seaman Ralph Rackstraw (Colm Fitzmaurice). She offers a superior soprano voice, bell-clear and with great charm. Fitzmaurice was right there with her in duets, and was involved in a delightful trio, "A British Tar," teaming with William Whitefield and glorious bass Quinto Ott. All the principals stood tall, including Keith Jurosko as the ship's captain, Angela Smith as Little Buttercup, Louis Dall'Ava as villainous Dick Deadeye and Victoria Devany as Hebe, one of Porter's many female admirers, listed as sisters, cousins and aunts, and memorialized as "his sisters and his cousins, whom he reckons by the dozens, and his aunts." A perfectly delightful evening, ideal for the entire family.
H.M.S. Pinafore, by the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players, at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. Final performance at 3 p.m. Sunday
–Joe