No 37 -- Summer 1991 Edited by Michael Walters
Clement Scott, though shouldst be living at this hour. G&S hath need of thee. Now we know that it was the outraged ghosts of both Gilbert and Sullivan who burned down the Savoy Theatre – united at last after 90 or so years of separation. I thought I had seen the bathos when I described the New DOC's PIRATES OF PENZANCE asa tasteless travesty. This GONDOLIERS was both obscene and disgusting. I had heard terrible accounts of the production, but it was far worse than I had ever dared to fear. When the Duchess killed and then ate a rat which ran across the stage during "In enterprise of martial kind" I very nearly left the theatre then and there, but I restrained myself until the interval. Not only was the production witless, but musically it was the most boring rendering of a G&S I think I have heard. All the singers were fully competent, but not one of them sounded like principal material, at least on the evidence of their performances in this production. I cannot think when I last heard such uninteresting singing, not one of the cast exhibited the slightest musical individuality. Compare this with the 1927 recording (the "Lytton"); every one of the cast in that recording has an individual timbre and personality. In this production one had the feeling that all the men and all the women were musically interchangeable – no differences between them were discernable. Nor did anyone really act – but this was perhaps not their fault, in view of the idiotic way they were made to deliver their dialogue.
The curtain rose on an undulating floor cloth, like an enormous piece of yellow corrugated iron. Why? At various points a red curtain with an exclamation mark was drawn across. Why? The cast and chorus were forced to negotiate these undulations by running up and down over them (while singing!) in a bizarre sort of perpetuum mobile. Why? Other than this there was little on which to comment in the opening sequence, and I began to think the production was merely tiresome. The arrival of the Plaza Toros made me think differently. They arrived in a packing case, delivered upside down. Why? The Duke (Colin Morris) spent his time holding a matador's cloak at arm's length, racing frenetically up and down over the undulations, windmilling his arms. The Duchess (Nuala Willis) wearing trousers under a transparent hooped skirt, seemed like a caricature of Carmen Silvera (" 'Allo 'Allo"). Luiz (Philip Creasy) wore a white powdered wig with punk spikes on it (Why?) while Casilda spoke in a voice more usually associated with a slut than a peeress.
But it was the delivery of the dialogue in the Plaza Toro scenes which caused the greatest concern. Casilda (Elizabeth Woollett) spoke her lines in a flat unvarying tone with no commas or full stops, equal accents on all the syllables and exactly equal spaces between all the words – the sort of delivery generally heard from primary school children in their end of term productions, and which their teachers spend hours and years trying to discourage. (In fact, this admirably sums up the production – infantile). I would not, of course, insult Miss Woollett by supposing that she spoke in this way of her own volition; it was evident that he had been so instructed.
During the "Regular Royal Queen" quartet, a corgi appeared dressed as Queen Elizabeth II. Why? I found this offensive, and a gross insult to Her Majesty. After "In enterprise of martial kind" the dialogue cut to Act 2 with "well whatever happens I shall of course be a dutiful wife ..." leading to the Duchess's song. The reason for this was totally obscure, and I didn't wait to see what happened at that point in Act 2. Don Alhambra (John Rath) was a snarling Mafia boss – not very original; lots of producers have thought of that before. Again, the artificial delivery of the dialogue made the role very difficult to listen to. The final Gondolier sequence was boring, with once again, people rushing about, up and down the undulations in seemingly purposeless fashion. Elizabeth Elliot, formerly of Imperial Opera, was Giulia. A Gilbert and Sullivan opera is not a musical, the characters have an integrity which needs to be interpreted. If a director believes that it is necessary to have everybody frenetically rushing about all the time if the piece is not to become boring, then clearly he does not understand the text. I left at the interval feeling deep regret that the company had been reformed, and hoping that it would soon close down again.
MICHAEL WALTERS
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