I seem to have missed the boat on the opening of the latest production by the Lamplighters Music Theatre. Fortunately, three performances remain over the course of this coming weekend. So I still have time to provide the “nuts and bolts” of a preview article!
The production marks a significant departure from the usual canon of operettas with words by W. S. Gilbert set to the music of Arthur Sullivan. A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is a musical comedy, which opened on Broadway on November 17, 2013 and came away with four Tony Awards the following June. The music was composed by Steven Lutvak, working with a book by Robert L. Freedman. The lyrics were prepared jointly by both Lutvak and Freedman.
The musical is based on a 1907 novel by Roy Horniman entitled Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal. However, the story is probably best known due to the 1949 British film Kind Hearts and Coronets, one of the most memorable of the Ealing films starring Alec Guinness before he became a Jedi master. In the film Israel Rank became Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, suggesting a shift from Jewish to Italian ancestry. In the musical he becomes Montague “Monty” D’Ysquith Navarro (performed by Nathanael Fleming).
As a child Monty lives in poverty. After his mother dies, an old woman informs him that his mother was actually a member of the aristocratic D’Ysquith family, which disowned her for marrying a commoner. It turns out that he is ninth in line to inherit the D’Ysquith earldom. The title of the play thus refers to the systematic way in which he eliminates the eight relatives that stand between him and the earldom. In the film Guinness played not only the part of Louis but also those of all eight of the relatives. In the Lamplighters production, all of those relatives will be performed by Krista Wigle. Monty further advances himself with an engagement to Phoebe D’Ysquith (Jennifer Mitchell).
The remaining performances of this engagingly convoluted farce will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 3, and at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 4, and Sunday, June 5. In addition, there will be a simulcast of the Sunday performance. The performances will take place at the Presidio Theatre, in the Presidio at 99 Moraga Avenue. Ticket prices range from $50 to $80. Prices for seniors aged 62 and older will be between $45 and $75. Groups of ten or more will be charged between $40 and $70 per tickets, and the student rate is $31. Admission to the simulcast will be $50. City Box Office has created a single Web page to process all ticket orders.
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