rhyming, warbling, and chiming, they’re coming. The Ralph Rackstraws, the
Patiences, the Mabels, the Deadeye Dicks, the Kings of Barataria, the
Nanki-Poos, and those very models of the modern Major-General, are coming to
town. All the fanciful figures who trill and patter their way through the
world’s most popular comic operas are coming, each in multiple versions, like
coveys of copies, cliques of clones, to sing — literally — the praises of
their creators: W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.
The characters of Gilbert & Sullivan’s operas, as embodied by performers
who have played them onstage and those who have played them only in their
showers or their dreams, descend upon us this weekend to fan the flames of
their mutual passion in Texas’ first Gilbert & Sullivan convention.
Devotees from Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and a few more far-flung
municipalities will join local aficionados for three days of celebration of all
things G & S. They’ll discuss the 14 operas. They’ll compete in a quiz.
They’ll talk funding and marketing. They’ll contemplate a confederation of
Gilbert & Sullivan societies.
And they’ll sing. Members of Austin’s society will sing various numbers in a
seasonal revue. The Dallas company will sing Trial by Jury with a
30-member cast. Any conventioneer who cares to may sing a favorite piece in a
Gilbert & Sullivan “open mike.” And all of them will sing the score of
The Pirates of Penzance. It’s an attempt to bring fans of the team
together and, in the words of Robert Mettlin, president of the Austin society,
“to spread the good news about this unique and enjoyable form of theatre.”
To some, the idea of a convention of Gilbert & Sullivan Societies in this
day and age may seem an exercise in obsolescence. After all, the works reek of
the time and place in which they were born: late Victorian England, with all
its Empirical puffery, its rigid behavior, and high-tone romanticism. Do
Americans today really have the — pardon the pun — patience for Penzantian
Pirates and Pinafores? At a time when we cough up $37 million in one weekend
for an Ace Ventura movie, the witty ditties and sly spoofery of these
19th-century musicals couldn’t seem more outdated. And yet… And yet….
And yet, there are presently some 200 Gilbert & Sullivan Societies in the
U.S. Of the three in Texas, the Houston society has been in existence for
almost 40 years and the Austin group for 20. And it seems you can’t truly kill
a Gilbert & Sullivan Society. When the Dallas society died — zoop! —
another sprouted in its place. Mettlin sees that as the case nationwide. “Some
go and some new ones start up,” he says, “but there are always about 200 in the
country.”
Contrary to the cultural conventional wisdom, interest in Gilbert &
Sullivan seems on the rise. Attending the convention this weekend will be
individuals from San Antonio who are interested in founding a society there. A
roundtable discussion is being held to provide the San Antonians with advice in
getting their group off the ground.
Mettlin offers the Austin Society as further proof that a troupe focusing on
Gilbert & Sullivan can prosper in the Nineties. “We’re bigger now than ever
before,” asserts Mettlin, citing a current paid membership of 50 people and an
audience for their productions in the thousands. “Our productions have become
bigger, better performed. We have a budget that’s four or five times as much as
we used to have. We use a 15-piece orchestra. We have an office, and we put it
to full use. We give scholarships. We have a lot more money in the bank than we
used to.”
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes,
Then I can hum a fugue of which I’ve heard the music’s din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
This reported robustness of the local G & S Society doesn’t mean that the
group is without challenges. It continues to wrestle with the level of quality
in its productions. Mettlin offers: “We’re not perfect. We’re still looking to
improve certain production values. I felt that in our last show, we had really
beautiful costumes. I liked the choreography a lot. We had a very good cast.
But in terms of everything hitting on all eight cylinders? I don’t know. I
really think that having more rehearsals goes a long way toward making a great
show. But then you get into the problem of it being community theatre. You can
only ask so much time of people.”
As pressing as the issue of who’ll be onstage in future G & S productions
is the issue of who’ll be in the audience. Many of today’s fans were introduced
to the operas in a time when productions were more numerous and enjoyed a
higher profile. In the last 20 years, the only major effort to bring G & S
to young audiences was Joseph Papp’s pop production of The Pirates of
Penzance with Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt. “There are a lot of people
who really like Gilbert & Sullivan,” says Mettlin. “Quite frankly, a lot of
them are older people, though I’ll leave it to you to decide what `older’ is. A
lot of these people grew up with Gilbert & Sullivan. We’re trying to find
out, in this age of instant gratification, if there is still a possibility for
young people to appreciate this form of popular music. In Pirates, the
hero Frederick sings to the young ladies:
Oh, is there not one maiden here whose homely face and bad complexion
Have caused all hope to disappear of ever winning man’s affection?
Now, I think that’s really funny. But would a 12-year-old, a 20-year-old today
appreciate that? I don’t know. We have to find that out.”
And they’re doing that, via a new outreach effort inaugurated this month. “We
have a quartet: Amy Baker, Frank Delvy, Janette Jones, Garret Maddux, with Bob
Wall on piano, and we’re taking them into Brooke Elementary to sing to the
students. It’s one of our missions: to educate young people in this form of
popular, quality music. Now we’re really getting into it.”
The Austin Society is far from alone in grappling with the issue of audience
development. It is an issue which affects every G & S company, and it
provides one more reason why an organization and a regular meeting of
Gondoliers and Yeomen of the Guard would be a good thing. “There are certain
issues that are pertinent to our particular kind of organization: how Gilbert
& Sullivan is viewed by the populace at large; how to appeal to younger
people; is it necessary to appeal to younger people? It would be useful to know
what the other organizations are doing. But it would be useful for other
purposes, too: to rent costumes or sets or personnel from each other. A
confederation of Gilbert & Sullivan Societies, I think, is a very useful
thing to have.”
Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform
And tell you every detail of Caractacus’ uniform;
In short, in matters, vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of the modern Major-General.
As to what will happen when these G & S devotees share their passion with
the next generation, my guess is they will make new fans of Gilbert &
Sullivan. The kids may not understand all the references or get all the jokes,
but they will find The Mikado and The Sorcerer and the rest to be
as much an antidote to the times as Ace Ventura. Because the shows are fun.
When they’ve finished praising the intricacies of Sullivan’s music and the
savvy satirical jabs of Gilbert’s words, those who revere G & S offer the
same basic reason for their devotion: The shows are fun. As Mettlin puts it: “I
like music. I like singing, dancing, comedy. Everybody joins hands and they all
skip off to fairyland and get married or whatever. I like happy musicals.”
So how can they not endure? n
This article appears in December 1 • 1995 and December 1 • 1995 (Cover).