stage matters / By William Kowinski

Rent-a-Pirate

HLOC and Ferndale Rep musicals sing

(Aug. 12, 2010)  In 1879, Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera called The Pirates of Penzance premiered, not in London, but in New York, arguably influencing the development of the American musical. A little more than a century later, Jonathan Larson’s rock opera Rent made New York its subject and changed musical theatre everywhere. Outstanding homegrown productions of both shows are currently on North Coast stages.

Maybe it’s the current affection for piratical affectations, or maybe just the prevailing local approach to musicals, but Humboldt Light Opera Company dispenses with the smirks and self-consciousness that can mar Gilbert and Sullivan revivals. Instead they present a buoyant, colorful and joyful Pirates of Penzance at Humboldt State’s Van Duzer Theatre.

Cindy Cress, James Gadd and Fiona Ryder as Ruth, Frederic and Mabel in HLOC’s The Pirates of Penzance COURTESY OF HLOC

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James Gadd and Fiona Ryder reunite (from last year’s The Light in the Piazza) as the appealing skull-and-bones-crossed lovers. Bill Ryder as the stalwart Pirate King, the dynamic Cindy Cress as Ruth and Ellsworth Pence as the Major General are just the most obvious standouts in a huge and capable cast. The dances, especially those choreographed and led by Craig Benson, add another layer of delight. Musical direction by David Powell and Katri Pitts, the orchestra conducted by Justin Sousa, choreography by Shaelan Salas and sound by Justin Takata admirably support the local gold standard of singing. Carol McWhorter Ryder’s wise direction, together with Jayson Mohatt’s economical but elegant and useful set and lighting design and everyone involved in creating the colorful costumes, filled the Van Duzer with exciting clarity.

HLOC is a community theatre organization, but I doubt if you could find a professional theatre version of The Pirates of Penzance with as perfect a production and as winning a cast. They highlight all the humor, eternal and historical, with skillful song and dance, romantic and euphorical. They ply us with a plot that is at best fantastical, with certitude and grace, droll and enthusiastical. With audience in tow, they sail to this attainment. More ecstatic than dramatic, this is the very model of a modern entertainment.

HLOC’s The Pirates of Penzance continues in the Van Duzer on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. until Aug. 21, with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. on Aug. 8 and 15.

I lived in New York City briefly in the 1980s, and visited frequently throughout the decade. I knew, talked with, worked with, overheard and interviewed dozens of artists (in theatre, painting, filmmaking, dance, writing, etc.) when conversations on the subject of survival (artistic and actual) centered on rent. It was when real estate prices and rents first shot into the stratosphere, and finding and affording a place to live became a much greater struggle than it had been for previous generations of aspiring artists. Rent was the defining item and the dominant topic — until overrun by the savage plague of AIDS.

This is the context for Rent, with the East Village in the late ’80s as its focus — a place of extremes, symbolized for me one afternoon by a block of derelict buildings along a street strewn with broken glass, with one parked car: a Rolls Royce in front of a new art gallery in a padlocked loft.

In the long genesis of Rent, Jonathan Larson combined the spine of Puccini’s opera La Boheme and aspects of his own life with other cultural touchstones, especially common American holidays. Though its seams sometimes show, and I find the opera style (no spoken dialogue) a little too relentless for a piece this long and frenetic, it’s an affecting theatrical adventure that has won establishment awards, popular success and a cult following.

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