H.M.S. Pinafore

IF YOUR TASTE runs to full farce, there are a number of suitable performances currently running under the guise of "strategy meetings" at Phillips Brooks House, in various obscure rooms in Holworthy and Weld--and, of course, in Massachusetts and University Halls. However, if comedy a bit lighter is more to your liking, might I suggest the most delightful Gilbert and Sullivan that the Agassiz stage has seen in several years.

It is always gratifying to witness a performer improve his role, and this production affords that gratification in triplicate to staunch Harvard Dilbert and Sullivan patrons. John McKean seems to have found, in Ralph Rackstraw, the Gilbertian lead to which he is best suited. The part calls for rapid changes of character: from a caricature of soulfulness to impetuosity to prideful rage to rapture to despair to pompous authority and back, finally, to rapture. That McKean can make so many transitions so rapidly is itself a feat worthy of praise; that he makes them so smoothly and so convincingly is simply amazing.

Similarly, Susan Larson's Josephine, her third consecutive lead at Agassiz is easily her best. To her singing voice, which is still her major asset, she has added an ease in her movements about the stage and in her transitions of mood which had not quite developed in her previous roles. Though she is perhaps not as physically suited for the role of a genteel captain's daughter as she was for the authoritarian figure of Princess Ida, the element of absurdity added by the contrast of her size to that of Jeff Davies is more than worth this minor disadvantage. Davies, the third improved veteran, has what superficially appears an easy task as Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B.; he must consistently be a pompous nurd. However, English nurdiness is not the easiest of qualities to maintain, particularly for a Welshman, and his hysterically funny success in doing so is certainly the strongest characterization in the entire cast.

OF THE OTHER characters, Stuart Rubinow as Dick Deadeye is the most striking. Rubinow's capacity for investing his villains with the most detestable and repugnant qualities seems infinite, and it is a shame that Deadeye gives him relatively little scope for this peculiar but essential ability. Also constrained by the minute size of her part, Joan Lucas as Hebe, Sir Joseph's First cousin, neverthless makes character so appealing you find yourself wishing Gilbert had given her more lines.

The voices of both William Baker and Natalie Fisher, though adequate and pleasing, are not quite as strong as one might wish, and occasionally it is difficult to hear them above the orchestra. But their characterizations of Captain Corcoran and Little Buttercup leave little to be desired--save that Miss Fisher should, ideally, be about twenty pounds heavier.

Scott Kirkpatrick's set, though extraordinarily functional and realistic, seemed at first glance to leave too little room for a large chorus, and when the seamen began pouring our of the hold as the curtain went up you wondered where they could all fit. But David Hammond's staging finds places for all of them, and, much more remarkably, makes it tolerably believable that they are indeed sailors milling about on a ship's main deck. Hammond's talents as a director, though, are overshadowed by his skill as a choreographer; the action became so compelling on one trio that the audience found itself clapping in time to Larson and Davies' jig.

James Paul is, as ever, powerful, meticulous, and demanding of his orchestra. And the result is, as one has come to expect, a rendition of Sullivan's most exuberant score that splendidly complements Hammond's direction. The orchestra is slightly overbalanced towards strings and could, perhaps, have been a bit brassier; but the necessity to resort to criticism so minor only underscores the fact of an excellence that has become traditional.

If, before, these pages have advised kind readers to refrain from deposting their hard-earned coin in the coffers of the Gilbert and Sullivan Players, they now caution those selfsame readers to hasten the box office while tickets still remain. "For it were a shame to have seen the rest, and to have fail's to see the best."