"STARSHIP PINAFORE" with Village Light Opera

Village Light Opera Group did two performances of STARSHIP PINAFORE last weekend, and will do three more this weekend, Nov 20, 21, & 22. I went Friday night expecting something pretty dismal and was happy to have my expectations thwarted. If you only see one "Pinafore" this year without me in it (January 10 and 12, City Center) this should absolutely be that one. The principals were all unusually acceptable by any standards, especially VLOG (VLOG is an amateur membership company, and must cast what they have). I enjoyed Sir Joseph particularly. The Josephine actually seemed to have been encouraged to be funny. Deadeye (a mutated wreck with a melted face) was a very strange character indeed, with some of the most eccentric line readings I've ever heard. And the VLOG chorus is always delightful: regular people up there doing the best they can - sometimes not that good - and loving it.

This is a production I created in Maine TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO! Unbelievable. With a summer G&S company called "Popular Opera of Pittsfield" (POoP), Pittsfield being my home town, and the home town of Linwood James. I wanted to keep the text as close to Gilbert as possible but change all the "daughter/water"-type rhymes and whatever else wouldn't make sense on a spaceship. Bill Brooke, who played Sir Joseph then and in every production prior to this VLOG one, which he directed, started by re-writing Sir Joseph's song and has continued to tinker with the text over the decades. We have also had many unsolicited suggestions from Trek nerds over the years. I've become more lenient about changing stuff just to make it funny, but I draw the line at changes just to make Trekkies giggle.

The futuristic "director's concept" is purely a gimmick. I have never pretended that just putting "Pinafore" on the bridge of a starship did anything that would make it more relevant, as if it ever was, to Americans. I wanted to change nothing that didn't need it. My reasoning was that in the 
23rd Century, when the British space program transports Englishmen to infinity, Britain will rule the stars the way they once ruled the waves. This will result in a re-evaluation of the Victorian principles that once made England what it was, thus making the outdated attitudes expressed by Gilbert blah, blah, blah, you get the picture and I'm getting tired writing about it.

It's set on the bridge of an Enterprise-type starship: sliding doors, flashing lights, sound effects, Captain's chair in the middle. When we did it in Maine the local chorus people brought all their Christmas lights and we had a TV that displayed the Space Invaders game, which wasn't new even at that time, while crewmen stood around acting like they were doing something significant. This production is great for chorus men who are into providing themselves with motivation. The women all wore sawed-off little mini-things and go-go boots. There were aliens. Sir Joseph enters in a Darth Vader mask, rendering him unintelligible (stolen from Spaceballs, but I have no objection to stealing good gags from such a lame source). Sir Joseph is half Vulcan/half Englishman = 100% impossible windbag. Hebe is an inscrutable real Vulcan. Buttercup started as a green Orion slave girl but over the years became a kind of plant person. The times we did the show in Maine ('87 and '91?) Keith Jurosko played the Captain and delivered all his dialog in beautifully intense, spastic, Shatner style. Colby Thomas was a heck of a space babe as Josephine.

The second time we did the show in Maine - I am not sure of the year - Popular Opera of Pittsfield had become Maine Opera Theatra (MOTHRA), a metamorphosis in title which unfortunately did nothing to make the company any more financially successful. So we had to let it die.

STARSHIP PINAFORE's next incarnation was in 2000, for VLOG, with me directing and Bill Brooke again playing Sir Joseph. And after that, now, with Bill directing and me delightfully uninvolved and typically uncompensated.

See it this weekend. Tickets are cheap from theatermania. Go to the VLOG site at the top for directions. It's at Pace, lower Manhattan. This is VLOG's first production in this really nice but kind of weird theater, having moved from the Fashion Institute of Technology theater, where they had been for decades, and can no longer afford. Be nice to the jolly friendly people in the orchestra picket line (this production is with piano and synthesizer) and read their leaflet about the strike.

Comments

[Brian]

"...Keith Jurosko played the Captain and delivered all his dialog in beautifully intense, spastic, Shatner style."

I'd pay real money to see a reprise of that!

[mr steve]

Thank you, Brian, I hear you. I will get those old videotapes made digital some day, and let it be known.