Theatre - Piromania

When performances of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony were given in England towards the end of the nineteenth century, the final movement, the Ode to Joy, was often accompanied to a rousing finale by four military brass bands. Victorian culture with its bawdy music halls and tawdry ballads was often so far over the top that even the more extravagant Ken Russell might seem tame in comparison. Victorian England was not iust the era of the straight-laced, its culture represented a curious .ble nd of the sentimental and the pompous. Perrhaps Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas are the perfect none too respectful exxpression of that quaint melange.

Not that the full houses which are currently making the Noel Pearson production of The Pirates of Pennzance one of the biggest successes of recent years are preoccupied with Vicctorian culture. This revamped version of The Pirates is a winner. Its blend of song and dance, riotous energy, innspired comedy, imaginative staging and witty costumes make for perfect esscapism. The Lenin shipyard of Gdansk, the nation's budget deficit, cares and worries are forgotten in an energetic two hour romp which is part opera comique part Christmas show.

The expiry, in the late '70s, of the performance copyright, held in the name of the D'Oyle Carte Company for fifty years has let loose a veritable riot of improvisatory singing, staging and acting on this production. The Pirate King swings out of one of the boxes and onto the stage ona rope, the police force run through the auudience, the actors indulge in horse play with members of the orchestra and throughout it all, the re-scored music has a distinctly loud and contempoorary feel.

It might be thought that the two original authors, William Gilbert, the librettist, and Sir Arthur Sullivan, the composer, would be turning III their graves at this irreverent send up of their work. Far from it. It is someetimes forgotten that they too, in their time, were sending up contemporary preoccupations ranging from women's education to Victorian melodramas about Pirates. Gilbert was far from reeverential about establishment figures. The very model of a modern major general was an obvious dig at the lazy and complacent military men of the day:

"For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury , Has been brought down to the beginning of the century;" Gilbert even does the unthinkable for a Victorian and pokes ambiguous fun at royalty when the Pirate King says:

"But many a king on a first class throne,
If he wants to call his crown his own,
Must manage somehow to get through
More dirty work than ever I do."

The very plot (what there is of a plot, that is) is a send-up of the overly romantic melodrama about piracy which was typical of the time. The figure of the major general, with his ancestors by purchase, is also an obbvious dig at the large numbers of nouveau riche, who had come to wealth on the back of the Industrial Revolution of the last century. Gilbert even manages to be ambiguous about that most Victorian of virtues, duty, when he portrays Frederic first fightting with the pirates, then with the police and again with the pirates all in the name of a sense of duty.

In a similar vein, Sullivan's music is full of gentle parody. Sullivan connsidered himself a serious composer and as such he wrote various symphonic and oratorio works. His operetta wriiting, however, he took very much less seriously. Indeed for most of his life Sullivan felt guilty about what he connsidered to be the not quite respectably won success of his stage music. The reesult is that, although the operettas were most skilfully scored, they are full of far from reverential references to many of the great opera composers from Mozart to Verdi. Bill Whelan, who re-scored the music for the Olymmpia production, was interested to note that when the orchestral musicians in the band first came to play the music, they found send ups of Verdi, Rossini and others in several pieces. Needless to say, although such allusions are lost on nearly all the modern Pirates audience, they would have been pickked up by a significant proportion of the Victorian audience.

~ plot of the Pirates is pure childrens' fantasy - one of the things which Noel Pearson has found surpriising about this production, is the nummber of children, even as young as five, who have sat quietly, totally enrapptured, throughout the two hours. All the baddies become goodies, all the sis- ters find husbands and everyone lives happily .....

In this sort of entertainment, the story is almost irrelevant, the music's the thing. Here musical arranger, Bill Whelan, freely acknowledges that there are very few non-Sullivan notes in this scoring. Working from the oriiginal score and with the aid of a tape of the current New York production, Whelan changed the orchestration quite radically but left the Sullivan melodies untouched. He replaced the small concert orchestra of the nineeteenth century with a combination of wind, keyboard and percussion instruuments. The most glaring alteration is the dropping of strings and the incluusion of a large percussion section, which includes vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel, timpani, drum kit, orchestral base drum, mark tree, bell tree plus rattles and whistles. This secction is used to provide much of the music's comic effect, while the volume of sound comes from the blend of electric keyboards and brass.

Undoubtedly Sullivan's music is stronger on sentimentality than on pomposity. Much of the success of Noel Pearson's production can be atttributed to the fact that the bold Sir Arthur could write a fine melody. It is little known that one of the greatest excitements of Sullivan's life had been a trip to Austria in search of Schubert manuscripts. He was in fact responnsible for discovering the original copy of Rosarnundd music. Although he could mirnick almost any composer, Sullivan retained a special affection for Schubert's music and there are often suggestions of Schubertian melody in his writing.

In auditioning for this show, Noel Pearson and director Patrick Mason, laid an especial emphasis on ensuring that all the members of the chorus as well as the leading actors and actresses could sing. In three months of auditioning over 300 would-be players were heard. The time was well spent since the chorus is one of the strengths of the show, not only for its imaginaative and often hilarious dance moveements (choreographed by Mavis Ascott) but also because of its singing ability.

Another irresistable strength of this production is the sense of fun which all the cast bring to their work. Prior to each performance the cast assemble at the theatre nearly two hours early to do warming up exercises, both for body and for voice. Pearson has noted with amusement that nobody turns up late for the pre-show warm up. Everyybody, it seems, is keen to go to work. Likewise a lot of people are keen to see the show, so much so that Pearson is predicting that this one will run and run and run until even Easter, maybe.

Pearson went to the New York verrsion of Pirates almost by accident. But Ireland's "grand homme" of theatrical impresarios does not take long to reecognise a winner when it simultaneoussly hits him in the face and the earrdrums. The gamble of such a large prooduction, with its weekly wage bill for over sixty people, has paid off handdsomely.

Noel Pearson's Pirates is a box office hit, there's no doubt. Current Dublin gossip is that he is so proud of it, he's feeling five foot tall. •