The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty, Hayes Theatre Co in association with the Art House Wyong, Hayes Theatre, 14 Feb-16 Mar (and subsequent tours to Wollongong and Canberra)

 

photography John McCrae

For a show that's 145 years old, "Pirates of Penzance" certainly has held pretty solidly in the repertoire. Of course since Gilbert and Sullivan's work went out of copyright it's had a few strategic revisions (the 1980 Public Theatre adaptation starring Linda Rondstadt and Kevin Kline was the model for a lot of changes, some of which got ported across into the popular Essgee version with John English and Simon Gallagher, though the Australian Opera's last go-around also imported a lot of design elements from "Pirates of the Caribbean"). For this version, the second Gilbert and Sullivan done by the Hayes (following the HMS Pinafore which toured to Queanbeyan in 2020), it's cut down to a cast of five, letting everybody double all over the place as well as playing instruments throughout to bump up the sound. To allow for this, director Richard Caroll has indulged in the post-copyright tradition of fiddling with the lyrics and the script, doing some slight streamlining of some elements of the plot while also throwing in some bonus extraneous gags. 

For the most part the storytelling is left pretty much intact, as are most of the songs (with one interpolation from "Patience"). A simple small stage area with some wandering allowed into some of the audience gives our cast plenty of room to manouvre, with Jay Laga'aia a boisterous Pirate King, a suitably humble Chief of Police and a titteringly charming daughter of Major General Stanley; Brittanie Shipway enjoying both the innocent virgin soprano Mabel and the somewhat more bitter (particularly in a Brecht-Weill-inspired "When Frederic Was a Little Lad") contralto Ruth, in fine voice in both of them. Maxwell Simon is our slightly-dimwitted hero Frederic, who beams innocent charm throughout, and Billie Palin fills in as everything else like a troubadour. And Musical Director Trevor Jones also covers as Major General Stanley taking his patter song at a rate of knots and filing in mutliple other roles with gentle skill . The cast members are rarely off-stage for long before charging back on in a different persona (or occasionally switching mid-scene without exiting) and it's a very lively production.

There are a couple of points where the rewrites do bow a little more to modern sensabilities than they really need to (the ending, in particular, is a little shaky, dragging out the ending to give justice to one of G&S's much abused contralto roles), and it's all very rompy - I do feel fortunate that Queanbeyan Players is bringing in a full-orchestra version of the show in a few months so I can get a proper Pirates alongside this somewhat sillier version - but Pirates in any version is always going to be a light piece of nonsense, and this keeps the spirits up nicely.