Pirates Shine Under The Stars

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday October 7, 2008

Ken Longworth

REVIEW

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE

Presented by: Maitland Gilbert and Sullivan Musical Society

Venues and dates: Maitland City Bowls Club, Rutherford, this Saturday and Sunday (phone 4939 1200); East Cessnock Bowling Club, October 18 and 19 (phone 4915 2345)

I'M always apprehensive about seeing outdoor stagings of musical theatre works, so I made my way nervously to Tempus Two winery at Pokolbin on Saturday night to see the opening performance of Maitland G and S's The Pirates of Penzance.

As things turned out, I needn't have worried. The performers' voices were as clear and crisp as the night air, their handling of the comedy was delightful, and musical director Ian Massey's orchestra delivered Arthur Sullivan's music splendidly.

Audiences at the production's indoor performances at Maitland and Cessnock over the next two weeks can look forward to a good time.

Writer W.S. Gilbert used the tale of a rather inept pirate crew to send up the manners and foibles of the British middle and upper classes.

When hero Frederic, for example, bids farewell to shipmates after completing a pirate apprenticeship, the Pirate King dismisses his call for the others to join him in everyday society. Piracy mightn't be much of a profession, he says, but "contrasted with respectability it is comparatively honest".

The opening scene on the pirate ship was surprisingly subdued on Saturday, with Roger Onslow, an actor who is good at putting colour into characters, being unusually bland. However, by the time he joined with Michael Cooper's Frederic and Bernadette Rennie as nursemaid Ruth, who has a yen for Frederic, in the lively song known as the Paradox Trio, he was in fine, rib-tickling mode.

Cooper is a classy Frederic, the epitome of the stalwart, upright hero, pleading eloquently in song with the bevy of beautiful young women he meets on a lonely beach for someone to love him.

Toni Hughes as Mabel, the woman prepared to heed his plea, delivers a lovely version of one of the best-known G and S songs, Poor Wand'ring One. And soon after, Russell Spencer as Mabel's father, Major General Stanley, provides amusing proof of the Pirate King's comment about respectability in the fast-patter song I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General.

The show's closing scenes, in which a police squad led by Tony Keene's bumbling sergeant tries to capture the pirates and shows itself to be every bit as inept as its opponents, have some hilarious comedy. Directors Jeanette Massey and Geoff McLaren, for example, have the squad members repeating instructions in voices like those of Dr Who's Daleks, and one policeman breaks into tap-dance in moments when the squad needs cheering up.

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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