Sunday, with Pirates

Most of the day was spent going up to San Francisco to see the Lamplighters' production of The Pirates of Penzance. The Lamplighters are a world-class amateur operetta company, with an emphasis on Gilbert and Sullivan. While there was a lot not to like about the staging of this production (I'll get into that in a moment), it's hard to go completely wrong with a good cast and some of Sullivan's most gorgeous melodies. Definitely worth seeing in spite of the few flaws.

On the whole, I think the main problem was that it hasn't been long enough since the last time the Lamplighters did Pirates, and they were trying to make it "different". I think the high point in the staging was a particularly nice bit with parasols in the Act I finale. The low point was definitely having the pirates and policemen doing a sort of parody ballet during "Sighing softly to the river" at the start of the Act II finale. Darn it, that's one of Sullivan's prettiest tunes; it deserves to be done seriously, if only for contrast with the inspired insanity of the finale. (Similar considerations apply to "The moon and I" in The Mikado.) And why ever did they leave out "I'm telling a terrible story" in Act I? It's not as if things are dragging at that point in the show!

Still, as I said, the good definitely outweighed the bad -- if the staging got too silly I could always close my eyes and enjoy the music. The singing was grand, as usual -- especially the vocal pyrotechnics of Mabel's entrance in Act I, and the tricky counterpoint melodies of "With cat-like tread" in Act II. (OK, I'm a bear of very little musical talent, and can just barely follow counterpoint, let alone write it. I'm just in awe of Sullivan.) And the performance of Kathleen Moss as Ruth was especially noteworthy, in particular her gleefully vindictive irony around the "Paradox song" in Act II. Oh, yes!

Sorry this has been a bit disjointed, and anyone unfamiliar with G&S has undoubtedly stopped reading by this point, but I'm afraid I'm even less talented as a theatre critic than I am as a writer. It'll have to do.

The flower_cat and I went up by ourselves this time -- the kids of course wanted to go to FurCon, and the people we'd offered their tickets to came down sick last night but didn't bother to tell us, so we didn't have time to make alternative arrangements. That's also very much a source of mixed feelings -- on the one hand, the kids would have enjoyed it; on the other hand, it was really pleasant to have a day out just the two of us. When we got back to the con hotel we found to our delight that both kids had already eaten (we'd given them each a $20 for the day's expenses), so we got to eat in the good restaurant (Spencer's). Where among other things they have waiters who know what kinds of gin they have in stock, and a bartender who knows what you mean by T-10 up with a twist.