Audio By Carbonatix
Gilbert and Sullivan turned comic opera into an extraordinary form of satire in their time. Tarantara! Tarantara! at the Denver Civic Theatre is a gleeful yet oddly dark tribute to the great team. Plays like H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and Trial by Jury are still funny because the nineteenth-century pretensions, excesses and abuses of power they mock are eternally ludicrous. We may tend to think of Gilbert and Sullivan’s madness as dated and harmless. But, in fact, as popular as their operas were, their humor was and still is subversive. Too bad Tarantara! isn’t more so.
Ian Taylor’s convoluted script reveals the nature of the two mens’ relationship, introducing us to each of them at birth, taking us through their first meeting and subsequent collaboration and ending with their departure from this world. As we watch their personalities unfold before us (what a very odd couple!), we get to hear some of the best songs they wrote together.
Mark Whalin as W.S. Gilbert gives us a scrappy, astute workaholic with a cynical disposition and an ego as big as all outdoors. It’s a resourceful, edgy, thoroughly engaging portrayal of a multitalented man who found his niche in the theater early on, then went on to practice law after his partner’s death. But though Whalin keeps pumping fire into the character, Taylor’s writing in the second act somewhat undermines the actor’s best efforts: The most interesting things we learn about Gilbert we learn in the first act.
James Sullivan as Sir Arthur Sullivan achieves a splendid balance between aristocratic dignity and businesslike ambition. He starts out stuffy and evolves into graceful distinction. Sir Arthur wanted to achieve fame as a serious composer, but his comic operas made him the money he needed to live his exuberant lifestyle as a society darling. James Sullivan–no relation, presumably–projects a good-humored soul onto Sir Arthur that is always involving and ultimately sad.
In the second act we learn that the theater Gilbert and Sullivan founded collapsed–and with it their relationship, over the matter of the expense of a new carpet. It’s clear that Gilbert’s perverse self-concern got the better of his common sense, but it’s even clearer that the two were burned out with each other and with their producer, Richard D’Oyly Carte. The second act gets bogged down in their petty quarrels and in the decline of their creative capacities, and the speedy pace achieved so beautifully in the first act lurches and languishes.
Aside from a number of temporary opening-night glitches–lines trampled by hasty actors, lost cues and confused movements–there are also a few problems with the casting. Stewart C.J. Clayton as George Grossmith has a nice voice but seems unfocused. Pamela White as Rose Hervey is bouncy and bright. Though her voice is lovely, it simply doesn’t blend well with the others. Tom Kerwin’s Joe also seems a tad unfocused, though he is delightful as the judge in the bit from Trial by Jury.
But Shana M. Kelly as Jesse Bond is a delight to watch. And Kevin Crandell plays the diffident, charming William Egnoor with high energy and fine composure.
Overall, Christopher Selbie’s directing is crisp and neat, and the singing is delightful. In the end, you may not have learned a lot about the Victorian society that produced Gilbert and Sullivan, or about the prodigious Gilbert’s true sources of inspiration. But if it fails to enlighten, Tarantara! Tarantara! does at least entertain, and it makes handy holiday fare for the family.