"Pirates of Penzance' in Oregon

My wife and I were in Ashland, Oregon, last month when Outside Magazine named it one of the best U.S. cities to be "outdoors in." We had come to see the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of Pirates of Penzance; and when we took our seats in the theater, we were, magically, still outdoors.

The production took place in the Elizabethan Stage/Allen Pavilion, whose ceiling opens to the sky, just like its Shakespearian-era model. As the performance moved along, dusk fell, and then full night, and each modulation of the growing darkness was a distinctive wonderland of light and shadow.

Tougher than Shakespeare

As for the Pirates production— the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's first venture into classical music since it opened in 1935— well, in a lifetime of attending and participating in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, I've never seen a better one. The originality and (dare I say) depth that the Festival brought to this work lived up to its reputation in producing Shakespeare.

Achieving both novelty and interest with Gilbert and Sullivan is, I'd assume, more difficult than with Shakespeare. Their works may be equally well known, which is to say they're quotable throughout, their plots are thoroughly familiar, and there are no surprise twists to discover. But the Bard's awesome themes intrinsically seem to offer greater possibilities than the devotion to duty, the Victorian fixation that's the central idea of Pirates (the subtitle is "The Slave of Duty").

Yet the Festival's Pirates was fresh in every aspect. During the overture, puppets of birds and dolphins, set on long poles and operated by stagehands running up and down the aisles, plied the air, conjuring a sea setting. Gulls sprang up suddenly from over the balcony railing where we sat, surprising and delighting us. Meanwhile, the Union Jack, unfurling in the open air above the theater's back wall, came down, replaced by the pirate skull and crossbones.

Motown riffs

Sullivan's melodies were punctuated with riffs in all sorts of musical styles, including Motown, gospel, big band, crooning, country, rock and rap (the program called them "grace notes"). The choreography exploited the various levels of the Festival's towering Elizabethan stage, so the cast frequently scaled rope ladders and conducted business some 20 or more feet above the main platform (in fact, right in front of the orchestra, which was perched up there).

The staging was aided by stagehands, dressed in tuxedos, who worked in full view, like supplementary thespians. When Frederic cruelly dismissed Ruth, she paddled off in a rowboat, singing her lament ("When Fred'ric was a little lad") while the spiffy stagehands rocked her vessel around the stage, successfully simulating a rough journey.

Over-emphasizing the make-believe was this production's way of making a predictable piece unpredictable. This approach continued to the very end, when the orchestra conductor turned to face the audience to reveal his minister's collar— the renowned "doctor of divinity" who will marry the pirates to the major general's daughters.

Major general in longjohns

The standout voice belonged to the soprano Khori Dastoor, who played Mabel. Unsurprisingly, Dastoor has spent the bulk of her career in opera— she made her mark in the title role of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor—and she can act as well.

The level of inventiveness in this production underlined the enduring sharpness of the operetta's social and political satire. The major general appeared first in his underwear— to deflate his pretensions. And when the pirates were revealed to be peers of the realm, we again enjoyed (if that's the right word) Gilbert's point that the seafaring scoundrels are interchangeable with the nation's leaders.

So should we be slaves of duty? After all that satire, obviously not. As Gilbert so wittily perceived, the concept of "duty" is an abstraction that commits us to action without reference to specific circumstances. Yet its appeal endures if only because "duty" offers an easy way out in a complex world.

Gilbert always chafed at not being knighted, as Sullivan was. It's hard to believe that he could ever have thought himself a candidate, considering the abundance of zingers he tossed at Victorian norms and Victorian leaders alike.♦


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