Chicago Theater Review: H.M.S. PINAFORE (Light Opera Works in Evanston)

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by Lawrence Bommer on June 9, 2013

in Theater-Chicago

SHIPSHAPE PRODUCTION TAKES SAIL

Still subversive as it both condemns and confirms class snobbery, this smash hit from 1878 fuses Romeo and Juliet and Punch into a role-reversing romp where love levels some ranks. Rudy Hogenmiller’s respectful revival, Light Opera Work’s fourth production of H.M.S. Pinafore since 1981, aims at nothing more than fidelity to Gilbert’s wit and Sullivan’s joy. No one on the busy stage at Cahn Auditorium confuses looking funny with being amusing. Even better, no one assumed that a self-consciously melodramatic plot just needed a little camp or shtick to achieve a totally useless artificiality.

Lawrence Bommer's Stage and Cinema Chicago review of Light Opera Works’ H.M.S. PINAFORE.

It’s enough to trust the text, relying on Gilbert’s trademark “topsy turvy” to expose the arbitrariness of class distinctions: No attack on unearned privilege could be more radical than the fact that a trained captain and unfledged sailor must instantly switch professions when it’s discovered that the lower was actually born higher than the other.

Lawrence Bommer's Stage and Cinema Chicago review of Light Opera Works’ H.M.S. PINAFORE.

Playing star-crossed and lovestruck Ralph and the imperious lass who nonetheless loves this sailor, ardent tenor Dane M. Thomas and Sarah Kelly sound as lovely as they look, soaring into lyrical heaven with “Sorry Her Lot” and “A simple sailor, lowly born.” The ever reliable James Harms as the First Lord of the Admiralty stuffs his shirt with pompous bluster. (Interestingly, when Sir Joseph Porter K.C.B. first appears, he’s lowered in a wooden crate marked “Antiquities,” dressed in civilian clothes as if to emphasize this Cabinet minister’s deplorable lack of naval experience. Later, when he puts on the regalia of a top admiral, he’s already been exposed.) A clueless, self-made aristocrat, Harms’ popinjay could have stepped out of Moliere’s equally contradictory Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

Lawrence Bommer's Stage and Cinema Chicago review of Light Opera Works’ H.M.S. PINAFORE.

A grotesquely melodramatic figure, Ryan de Ryke is more predatory than poignant in the thankless role of Dick Deadeye: A villain who becomes his own self-fulfilling curse, this nautical Richard III wisely decides not to confuse the world by behaving any better than he looks. Finally, Michael Cavalieri’s Captain Corcoran, caught between two classes, betrays the combustible confusion of a man who can control a man-of-war at high sea but not his own daughter “at anchor [we ride] on the Portsmouth tide.”

Lawrence Bommer's Stage and Cinema Chicago review of Light Opera Works’ H.M.S. PINAFORE.

Beautifully attired in sailor garb and the latest fashions from 1910 by Darcy Elora Hofer, and cavorting across a battle cruiser deck perfectly provided by Adam Veness, Light Opera Works’ huge and happy chorus commit themselves to Sullivan’s evergreen score with its unmatched ebullience and Gilbert’s still scathing lyrics. Andrew H. Meyers’ supple lighting design even provides the old-fashioned footlights essential to the original Savoy operas.

Lawrence Bommer's Stage and Cinema Chicago review of Light Opera Works’ H.M.S. PINAFORE.photos by Chris Ocken

H.M.S. Pinafore
Light Opera Works
Cahn Auditorium in Evanston
ends on June 16, 2013
for tickets, call 847.920.5360
or visit Light Opera Works

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago

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