Yesterday afternoon in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Blue Shield of California Theater, Lamplighters Music Theatre presented the first performance in San Francisco of the first production in its 70th Anniversary Season. This was also the first time since February of 2020 that the company presented a complete production of one of the operettas in the canon of creations with music by Arthur Sullivan setting words by W. S. Gilbert. The work produced was Iolanthe; and it will be given a second performance, again at 2 p.m., this afternoon. That performance will also be live-streamed, and City Box Office has created an event page for the purchase of a digital ticket for $50.
Iolanthe has always been a personal favorite, going all the way back to my high school days when a local performance in Philadelphia provided me with my first ushering gig. The idea of “parallel worlds,” one of supernatural fairies and the other of the House of Peers, could just as easily appeal to science fiction fans as to music lovers. Given the current political situations in just about all of the “first world” countries, Gilbert’s acidic attack on peers of the realm could not be more appropriate. On the fantasy side, we have a protagonist that is the son of one of those peers that married a fairy (the Iolanthe of the title). His “genetic crossover” gave him a body that was fairy above the waist and mortal below, evoking the image of his ability to go through a keyhole but with his legs dangling on the other side.
That gag, which surfaces early in the first act, is but the tip of an iceberg of topsy-turvy absurdities. By the time the narrative has advanced to the conclusion, all of the other fairies have fallen in love with peers, resulting in a transformation of all of the characters into “full-fledged” fairies. However, the reality of that second act is a darker world. The Palace of Westminster still stands; but the time is during the early days of World War II, right on the brink of what we now know as the Blitz of London, suggesting that this is the last “happy ending” that Britain is likely to see for some time.
This is usually the point in a review at which the writer singles out the qualities of all the solo roles. While it is certainly the case that all of those roles were engaging when both singing and speaking, I would like to call attention to how Director Nicolas A. Garcia handled the choral singers. We all know that the epitome of classical ballet is a corps in which the dancers are interchangeable. All the women look the same in their tutus, and they are partnered by men who also look all the same. In his staging of Iolanthe, Garcia endowed every voice in the choruses of fairies and peers with its own personality. This was realized through individual gestures and traits, as well as overall body shape, that distinguished one performer from another. The result was an added twist to many of the witty deliveries of the choral texts.
My only disappointment came with the absence of a program book. Instead, the program was provided through a Web site, accessible through a QR code on the single sheet of paper that listed cast and supporting staff. That content included a fascinating essay by Music Director David Drummond, discussing two musical selections that are almost never performed.
While I appreciate limited budgets, I have to say that not only Drummond’s essay but also most of the overall content rested on a solid foundation of understanding that could not be given a satisfactory account through a small screen. That formatting also takes its toll when the Web site is viewed on a computer screen. The psychology behind “reading from the screen,” whatever the size, has been a major area of research for many decades. Sadly, none of that research paid off in designing a Web site to do justice to the rich account of text provided to supplement the performance.
Nevertheless, there was more than enough to enjoy in this production of Iolanthe, even if most of it had to be taken only at face value.
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