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Knoxville Opera's 'Pirates of Penzance' finds its mark

Harold Duckett
Special to the News Sentinel

Listening to the loud laughter at the opening night of Knoxville Opera’s current production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera “The Pirates of Penzance” playing at the Tennessee Theatre, one would think that much of the outrageous goofiness, British sense of humor and social and political satire that appealed to the audience on opening night of its official premiere in New York on Dec. 31, 1879, still finds its mark.

Brian Deedrick watches as Claire Coolen and Joshua Kohl rehearse a scene from 'Pirates of Panzance."

But a lot has been lost to today’s audience, as well.

“Pirates” broke plenty of new ground. So much that it is truly the foundation of modern musical theater on both sides of the Atlantic.

At the time, there were no international copyright laws. “The Pirates of Penzance” premiered in New York specifically because Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1878 “H.M.S. Pinafore” had been pirated by American theater companies to the extent that when Gilbert and Sullivan brought their show to New York, reportedly a number of pirated “Pinafore” casts met them at the dock in a display of ironic American hospitality.

Of course, at the heart of British theater is the glorious English language. William S. Gilbert was such a stickler for actors getting his words right, according to George Grossmith, who originated the role of the Major General in “Pirates,” Gilbert would stand beside the singer/actor and “repeat the words with appropriate action over and over again, until they were delivered as he desires them to be.”

In KO’s production, Robert Orth, who sang the role of Major-General Stanley, would have benefited from the ghost of Gilbert by his side as he largely mumbled his way through what should have been crisp recitations that, without the surtitles above the stage, would have been an intelligible mess with the humor of it completely lost on an audience more than prepared to laugh.

But the Major-General’s initial entrance was funny enough and his Orth’s wimpy portrayal made his military rank a kind of joke of its own. Nevertheless, Orth came through in Act II with more of the kind of voice strength a man who has fathered  14 daughters ought to have.

The story of “The Pirates of Penzance” is centered on another failure to clearly understand what was said.

Frederic, the pirate apprentice, terrifically sung and performed by Joshua Kohl, had been mistakenly appended to a pirate because Ruth, delightfully performed by Jenni Bank, young Frederic’s childhood nursemaid had misunderstood his father’s instruction to apprentice Frederic to a pilot until he was 21.

It’s Frederic’s birthday and after this little snafu is revealed at the beginning of the opera, he declared himself free of his pirate apprenticeship and intends to use what he has learned about his pirates to bring them down.

In another Gilbert and Sullivan breakthrough in musical theater, the chorus in “Penzance” plays major roles as the crew of pirates, the brigade of police and the bevy of the Major-General’s daughters.

It’s easy for all of the Major-General’s daughters, the pirates and the police to mingle together because the set for this production is a well used section of shore with minimal rock outcroppings that were effectively utilized.

Initially, Frederic, who has never been around women, except for the presence of Ruth on the pirate ship, doesn’t know what a beautiful woman should look like, even asking the homely Ruth if she is beautiful.

Clearly a quick learner, once Frederic spots Mable, one of the Major-General’s daughters, gorgeously acted and sung by Claire Coolen in an outstanding performance easily equal to Kohl’s Frederic, he knows what real beauty is when he lays his eyes on her.

Unfortunately the singing of the other named daughters: Allison Deady who sang Edith, Brynn Johnson who sang Kate and Leslie Ostransky, who sang Isabel, didn’t measure up in either acting effectiveness or vocal strength.

But once Andrew Wendzel, powerfully singing the role of Sergeant of Police Edward, came on stage, accompanied by his force of policemen, everyone’s voices seemed to pick up as well.

In the end, of course, in a pointed observation on class divisions in British society, the pirates turn out to be noblemen after all and therefore, entitled match up with the general’s daughters.

Throughout much is made about the words and use of language. The entire sequence about the confusion of the words “orphan” and “often” in deciding just who the pirates really are was largely missed because, despite the opera being sung in English, the audience didn’t effectively pick up on it.

But the effect of the “How Beautifully Blue the Sky” scene, beautifully sung by Mable and Frederic in Act II, is the emotional center of the opera although the actual words they sing are rather blah.

In the end, the overall tone of “Penzance,’ played out in the opera by the dropping of a huge banner portrait of Queen Victoria, is that everyone, despite whatever class distinction, should come together in a unified vision of God and Country.

Since the arrival of “Penzance” on the theatrical stage, the theater, including musical theater, has been an effective stage for social commentary.

Considering the rancor being played out on the political stage in America today, a unified vision of God and Country couldn’t be more timely.