Reviews and Rehearsal Shots from
FRINGE FESTIVAL - NYC

August 2003

PINAFORE!
reviewed by Robert Kent
THEATRE MANIA.COM
If anyone asks, tell them Pinafore! is fabulous!
Adapted and directed by Mark Savage, this wildly entertaining and fiercely original
musical looks at Gilbert and Sullivan's classic H.M.S. Pinafore with a sharply focused
queer eye.

Docked off Palm Springs, California, this Pinafore is more Love Boat than war vessel.
"Below the deck, it's a barrelhouse of sex," warns-or titillates-Captain Corkinit
(keenly portrayed by Michael Gregory), who runs a tight ship manned by sexy sailors dressed
in Mia Gyzander's midriff-bearing tanks and stylish short shorts. Sweat glistens off
seamen Jason Boegh, Brian Givens, Brad Murphy and the charismatic Christopher Andrew Hall,
as they happily submit to the bump and grind of daily chores.

Gilbert and Sullivan's light opera is now lighter than ever. In fact,
it is a topsy-turvy treat. Honoring a tradition set by Charles Ludlum, Charles Busch
and others, cleverly twists his source material. The gifted writer and lyricist
(who co-authored Naked Boys Singing!) creatively combines musical theatre, opera,
burlesque, political satire, and camp. He also includes topical, hilarious references
to Kevin Spacey, Queen Latifah, Rupert Everett-and Republicans-among others.

Skillfully staged by Savage and whimsically choreographed by Ken Roht, this highly amusing
Pinafore! revolves around the ship's sole straight crew member, Dick Dockstrap (Hall), and
his love for Josephine-who is really the Captain's transvestite son, Joseph.
Unbeknownst to Dick, Joseph/Josephine (sensationally played by countertenor R. Christofer Sands)
is betrothed to trannie-chaser Senator Barney Crank (David Gillam Fuller). To complicate
the situation further, the Pinafore is being seized by a trio of drag queens
(Chadwick T. Adams, Scott Scarboro and Antonio Martinez). The sailors are planning a mutiny.
And, Captain Corkinit has unresolved "heterosexual" feelings for the buxom Bitter Butterball
(the deliciously talented Debra Lane), a mysterious peddler whose wares include
crystal meth and piercing jewelry.

"This is so confusing!" screams Harry Heavyseat (Wilson Raiser), a surly leather-clad
sailor who foils Josephine and Dick's plans to elope. Of course, by the finale,
everything is, um, straightened out.

Let's hope Pinafore! stays docked in New York for a long, long time.

London Financial Times

ARTS: Pinafore! New York Fringe Festival MARTIN BERNHEIMER
By Martin Bernheimer
Financial Times; Aug 12, 2003

Things are seldom what they seem. Take the wondrous case of Pinafore!, which opened on Saturday night at the Wings Theatre, in the West Village, New York.

Note carefully, please, the punctuation of the title. That exclamation point is crucial. Note that the customary modifier, HMS, is conspicuously absent. This isn't Gilbert and Sullivan's melodic tale of the lass who loved a sailor. This is a loving update about a lad who loves a sailor. It's a lusty lampoon of a Victorian satire, music by Sullivan, words mostly by the clever adapter-director Mark Savage. It's a splendidly silly concoction about the flagship of the outrageously gay navy, docked in arid Palm Springs, California. Don't ask. Don't tell.

The quasi-tenorino hero, formerly known as Ralph Rackstraw, is now Dick Dockstrap, the only heterosexual (wink, wink), and, even worse, the only Republican on board. He's madly, yes, madly, enamoured of Josephine, Captain Corkinit's relatively lovely daughter. As a wicked fate would have it, she happens to be Joseph, the captain's son. Never mind. The versatile captain, not incidentally, savours lyrics that rhyme "disgusted" with "well-busted", intoned in admiration of mysterious Bitter Butterball, the only natural contralto on duty. Everyone is agitated because of a visitation from an openly preposterous patter politico named Barney Crank. You get the drift.

All this should be awful, but it's wonderful in its unabashedly awful way. Savage manipulates his heavy-handed material with light-handed charm. Chip Prince pounds out the exquisite score, virtually unaltered, on an upright piano upstage. The ensemble preens and prances always con brio and sometimes in drag, with Christopher Andrew Hall as sweet Dockstrap, Michael Gregory as his dapper commander, David Gillam Fuller as the slumming senator and Debra Lane as the gallon-jugged bumboat woman.

The proceedings are triumphantly dominated, however, by R.Christopher Sands as the quivering ingenue with a secret. Despite a few less-than-ethereal top tones, Sands musters a smouldering prima-donnaperformance worthy of comparison with the assoluta of La Gran Scena, Vera Galupe-Borszkh, not to mention that diva of the demi-Bolshoi, Ansa Dafonskaya. Tel +1 212 279 4488

 

American Theater Web online

Pinafore! at Wings Theater

Coming to the Fringe by way of Los Angeles and Chicago, is Pinafore! a campy, thoroughly enjoyable reworking of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore. The action has been moved to from Victorian England to a mythical contemporary America, where Al Gore is President and gays in the Navy have their own ship, which has docked in Palm Springs.

Adapter Mark Savage has kept the operetta’s score and many of the pieces original lyrics and adapted those as necessary for this tale of love between Dick Dockstrap and the ship’s captain’s "daughter" Josephine (actually his son Joseph, who’s flirting with transgender issues). One reason for this sexual confusion is that Senator Barney Crank has asked for Joseph/Josephine’s hand in marriage, the only condition being that he/she be transgendered so that he can get that vote in the upcoming election.

Obviously, there’s not much more to say in terms of the story about this grandly silly, and thoroughly enjoyable take on the classic. Savage has staged the piece with appropriate winking and broadness and the company is more than glad to oblige. Christopher Andrew Hall provides a strikingly handsome pretty boy and beautifully sung presence as Dick. Michael Gregory boyishly beguiles as the gay captain, who can’t figure out why he becomes aroused in the presence of big-busted women. Debra Lane, as Bitter Butterball, the traveling saleswoman (complete with poppers and other sundries) who provides the answer, brings a kind of welcome Roseanne Barr presence to the proceedings. David Gillam Fuller makes the senator amusing in his smarminess.

The true star of the evening is R. Christopher Sands as Joseph/Josephine. Wearing white pancake makeup and dressed in silk pajamas, he looks something like Nijinsky when he first appears. He sings "Sorry his/her lot" in an affecting baritone. After he transforms into the Josephine drag (a grand burgandy gown with bustle courtesy of Mia Gyzander), he speaks and sings in a full range falsetto that amuses as well as moves. Sands milks the character’s duality for every laugh he can but one never feels as if he is mugging or milking. Audience approbation follows each line and song with ease.

Part of the wonderful dichotomy here is not only Sands’ willingness to expose the theatricality of his role, but also its professionalism alongside the evening’s more cheesy aspects – namely Robert Pryor’s painted cartoonish backdrop and Ken Rohr’s Shirley Temple inspired choreography for the buff crew.

Pinafore! ultimately is eye and mind candy, but it’s served so expertly, one is glad that it’s docked in New York for this brief run.

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