We sail the ocean blue …
For some ten years W.S. Gilbert was a reviewer for the Victorian weekly Fun, which was known as the “poor man’s Punch”; the magazine’s jester, Mr. Fun, and his cat were a parody of Mr. Punch and his dog, Toby. Both magazines published satiric verse, parodies, political and literary criticism. Gilbert was paid a resounding £1 for each article, mean fare even in those days.
Among the ill-paid writings Gilbert wrote for the journal were the satiric verses written under his pen name Bab, and later published as the “Bab Ballads.” Here is the opening to one of the more famous:
“Of all the ships upon the blue,/ No ship contained a better crew / Than that of worthy CAPTAIN REECE, / Commanding of THE MANTELPIECE.”
Sound familiar? Yes, indeedy, it’s a portrait of the crew under “the worthy Captain of the Pinafore,” denizens all of that unwaveringly popular Gilbert and Sullivan opera, “H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor”—though somewhere along the line the warship named after the imposing protector of the home fires, the mantelpiece, was transformed into a girl’s apron.
On July 22, the Lamplighter’s newly rigged production sailed into town, and it was as bouncy as ever. Repetition has never dulled the opera’s appeal over the almost 150 years since its opening in London in 1878.
Once again the Captain’s daughter, Josephine, pines over the difference of social status between her and the lowly sailor she loves, Ralph Rackstraw. Once again Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty, presses his suit for her love by reassuring her that love overrides and levels all class boundaries, except for the one between him and everyone else. Once again Dick Deadeye undoes the course of true love by ratting on Ralph and Josephine, revealing their elopement plans to her father. And once again the pleasing and plump personage of Little Buttercup reveals that “things are seldom what they seem!” All to a merry parade of notes that twists the meaning of the moment as well as the words.
The satiric heart of the opera lies in its criticism of the social system of Victorian England—a criticism that points out the silliness of class considerations while at the same time reaffirming the “rightness” of class distinction. After all, everything comes out right in the end: when the cloudy webs of Maya are swept away, everyone’s social station is revealed and each pining lover ends in the arms of an acceptable mate. All fitted out, with the rest of the approving cast, in the Lamplighters’ spiffy new costumes.
I especially liked the vocal quality of the singers this time around. Michael Belle provided a clear and lucid tenor for the English sailor and lover of the Captain’s daughter, Ralph Rackstraw. The beloved Josephine was sung by the lovely Jennifer Ashworth. Jonathan Spencer provided another resonant, and weightier, tenor as the Captain, and Sonia Gariaeff used her complexly colored mezzo to portray the rosy bumboat woman and object of the Captain’s admiration, Little Buttercup. F. Lawrence Ewing pattered away as Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., and Robby Stafford provided an ominous bass-baritone for the malcontented Dick Deadeye.
—Jaime Robles
Performances continue throughout the Bay Area until August 21. For tickets and information, call 415-227-4797 or visit www.lamplighters.org.
Photo: Lindsay Thompson Roush as Josephine. Photo by Lucas Buxman.