pera
Patience and a monument
Rodney Milnes
The centenary of the first Gilbert and Sullivan operatta, Trial by Jury, fell last week, and the D'Oyly Carte company, which approaches the canon with the deadly reverence of the professional embalmer, is celebrating that fact with a season at the Savoy Theatre. Evidence that these cheerfully satirical works are still alive and kicking against the pricks of pomposity and pretension usually has to be sought elsewhere, and during the previous week two performances on successive evenings — a revival of Patience at the Coliseum and a new production of Ruddigore by Kent Opera — were proof enough: I have not enjoyed as concentrated a dose of well disciplined absurdity since Joan Sutherland's Traviata.
John Cox's production of Patience has not always been good box-office, possibly because it
• makes no concessions to an audience that expects good old slap-and-tickle Victoria Palace jollity when it goes to the operetta. Either last week's audience, fresh from TV's The Love School, now knows a Beata Beatrix when it sees one or we are all growing up a bit, but all were kept in a state of continuous laughter by the inspired lunacy of the dialogue, by the ludicrous and alas timeless vanity of the rival poseurs, and by the uncompromising sophistication or the presentation.
As always, the evening got off to a good start with John Stoddart's sets and costumes, which manage to be funny and beautiful, affectionate and lightly mocking, at the same time. There is no prettier show in London's repertoires, nor one more expertly lit (by Charles Bristow). The linchpin of the performance remains the Bunthorne ot Derek Hammond-Stroud, a classic comedy interpretation as hysterical as it is carefully controlled. The remainder of the .cast, most of it new, at last lived up to him. Sandra Dugdale, a north country milk-maid, delivered her dialogue with the right knowing innocence and even managed, amidst the studied artificiality of the plot, to make her second act Ballad rather touching. Anne Collins (Jane), looking like some celestial reincarnation of the Margarets Rutherford and Dumont, cleverly got round Gilbert's potential cruelty to the middleaged and stout; "Not pretty — massive!" she flung at the audience, challenging us to love her, and of course we all did. Perhaps the happiest surprise was the Grosvenor of Tom McDonnell, hitherto a rather reserved baritone, who revealed a decidedly sly sense of humour. His description of Teasing Tom's favourite toy, delivered to a chorus of maidens frozen in wideeyed 'horror, had the audience in a nicely manipulated three-staged gale of barely suppressed guffaws.
There are hideous "dooble entenders" in Ruddigore as well, and I am sure that Gilbert, an amiably dirty old man, meant every one of them. But by comparison with Patience, the later work is rather carelessly constructed — too many unmotivated exits, too much uncertainty of mood. There is little that Adrian Slack, who was also responsible for Kent's excellent Pinafore, could do with Mad Margaret's entrance, which starts promisingly with a devastating parody of operatic madness but then droops into a horribly sentimental ballad, but I found his handling of the ghosts perfectly judged. Once descended from their frames, they made straight for the drinks cabinet and Sir Roderick (Malcolm King in splendidly black voice) for once kept to his promise of leading a jollier crew than you might suppose.
Mr Slack was lucky to have a notably strong male cast, led by John Wakefield's Dauntless, the ingenuous Jack Tar to end them all. Whether wrestling with the convoluted nautical jargon, lightening the over-long madrigal with fatuously thrown-away fa-la-las, or setting down his Union Jack carrier bag to a fearsome clatter of empty bottles (a beautifully timed two-tier gag), his utter sureness of style ensured a comedy performance in its way as fine as Mr HammondStroud's. The energetic and resourceful Thomas Lawlor made ' the most of more obviously promising material as Despard, while Alan Watt (Ruthven) showed that you can make a success of the Grossmith /Lytton roles without scampering around like an inverted grasshopper.
The ladies were a little less expert; Eiddwen Harrhy sang Rose's music as well as could be imagined, but she is not yet experienced enough to handle dialogue as loaded as this. Pauline Wales did what she could with Margaret, which cannot be much. With producers as inventive and lively as these around, Gilbert and Sullivan will surely live for another 100 years, though with precious little help from D'Oyly Carte. What we need is a Slack-Cox Opera Company to look after this lighter side of our national heritage. Perhaps the Arts Council, in its present generous mood, will oblige.
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