Empire Lyric Players do justice to the ‘The Pirates of Penzance’
It’s not often we get to see Gilbert & Sullivan shows here in Colorado, so many huzzahs to the Empire Lyric Players who have been performing them in the Denver area since — wait for it — 1958.
ELP was sidelined for the past two years due to you-know-what, but they’re back in full force with a delightful, well-wrought production of the Gilbert & Sullivan mainstay: The Pirates of Penzance.
First produced in New York City in 1879, Pirates is a particularly silly tale about a young pirate named Frederic (Jeff Jablonski) who, upon turning 21, is being released from his apprenticeship with a band of not-so-fearsome pirates based out of Penzance in southern England. Turns out he was supposed to have been a “pilot,” but his hard-of-hearing nursemaid Ruth (Claire LeBorgne Goeken) heard “pirate.” Ruth is the only woman Frederic has seen since he was 8, and while she professes her feelings for him despite their great age difference, the pirates strongly convince him to look past Ruth and see what other women might be out there.
As luck would have it, Frederic stumbles upon a veritable harem of eligible young women who are visiting the nearby beach. They are the many daughters of Major-General Stanley (Stephen Mathis), but only one responds to Frederic’s entreaties to give him a shot. Mabel (Jori Silber) and Frederic quickly fall in love, but there’s a wrinkle: Since he was born on February 29, his release date from his apprenticeship is technically many years in the future. Ruth (now a full-on pirate herself) and the Pirate King (Jerome Síbulo) aren’t going to force him back on the ship, they’re just letting him know about the situation — trusting to Frederic’s comically bloated sense of duty to lure him back.
Meanwhile, the rest of the pirate band descends on the Major-General’s daughters with the idea of marrying them, leading to the opera’s most famous song: “I am the very model of a modern Major-General” — a tongue-twisting, fast-paced rodomontade that Mathis pulls off beautifully along with the soaring harmonies of the rest of the cast.
(Much parodied over the years, the song was recently used to great effect by Randy Rainbow lampooning Trump.)
The Major-General manages to convince the pirates to buzz off by lamenting the thought of him being alone without all his daughters while also appealing to the band’s well-known sympathy for orphans. But the Major-General is also a slave to duty and honor, and he’s tortured by his lie about being an orphan himself. Helpfully, Frederic takes it upon himself to let the pirates know about the lie, and they show up looking to murder the Major-General.
Only the appearance of the queen — who mysteriously shows up in Penzance — stays the hands of the pirates, and all ends happily ever after.
For a small company, ELP does a tremendous job with the show. The singing is quite good, and there’s a tangible joy on the part of the cast to be performing this classic gem for a live audience. Director Kevin Crandell and choreographer Christa Silber both do a nice job leading the sizable cast in the performances at the Lakewood Cultural Center.
The other ace in the hole is the excellent orchestra, led by A.J. Wulf featuring strings, woodwinds and brass sections.
The only drawback is that, with only four performances, we’ll have to wait a year for another show since the last one is today at 2.
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