Copyright 2001 by Edward Willett

In 1985, Regina Summer Stage's first performance was Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore, or The Lass that Loved a Sailor. And now it has returned, for Summer Stage's 17th season--and if you haven't seen it yet, you should.

HMS Pinafore runs through Saturday, July 21, with shows at 8 p.m. each evening. Tickets are available at the Performing Arts Centre at 1077 Angus Street.

When you get to the theatre, you could be forgiven for thinking you'd wandered into the HMCS Queen building instead; the theatre is festooned with naval signaling flags and there on stage is the poop deck of a 19th century British man-o'-war, right down to the mast and wheel.

That stage is your first indication that this will be a traditional rendition of Gilbert & Sullivan's first big hit, which is far from a given--like Shakespeare's works, the G&S ouvre is often re-imagined and re-set--The Mikado, for instance, moved from the town of Titipu in feudal Japan to the boardroom of Titipu, Inc., a division of Fony Corp., to name one recent Regina example.

But director Jean Taylor knew from the beginning that she wanted a traditional production. "When we talked with the stage designer (David Roy-Allen), he was asking us did we want maybe something different for the set, or did we want traditional," Jean says. "I said, 'I want traditional. I want a ship on stage, I want cannons on stage, I want ropes on stage. He looked at me for a minute, then said OK."

The traditional choice made sense for Jean, who is British and has always liked Gilbert and Sullivan. "I know it, not so much from going to see it lots, but I was brought up on G&S at school. A lot of your elocution lessons were speeches from G&S. I know lots of those songs."

But staging G&S in traditional manner, adhering closely to the original script (except for a modern aside about a certain Canadian prime minister from Shawinigan on a couple of extra verses added to Sir Joseph Porter's song "When I Was a Lad") required a little extra educating of the cast.

"It's sort of older type English stuff, quite complicated in places," Jean explains. "Some of the principals would say, 'Well, I'm saying all of this stuff, but what do I really mean?' We would go through it bit by bit. And the chorus, too, we'd stop and say, 'What are you singing about here, are you happy, are you angry?' We had to make sure that they paid attention all the time and that they knew what their reactions were going to be."

Which of course raises the question, if the cast has to work extra hard to understand the script, will the audience understand it? Jean is confident they do. "As long as the cast and the chorus understand what they're saying then they can put it across," she says. "We had quite a big group from English as a Second Language and they seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. I'm sure they didn't understand every word, but they understood the story."

Jean is very pleased with the work the cast of 35 has turned in. "Our principal cast we were very, very happy with. The men's chorus, the women's chorus, they are a great bunch of people, a mixture of young and old, which we like, of course. It was nice to see some of the younger people coming out as well as the older people." In fact, she notes, the cast features people ranging from their mid-teens to their 70s--all, it should be remarked, local talent.

The principals include J. Alexander Clarke as Captain Corcoran, Mary Joy Nelson as Josephine Corcoran, Marianne Woods as Little Buttercup, Ken Spencer as Sir Joseph Porter, Dana Brûlé as Ralph Rackstraw, Rob Madden as Dick Deadeye and Darla Middlebrook as Cousin Hebe.

Everyone worked hard, starting rehearsals the last week in May and working Monday through Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons for the first several weeks, starting with music rehearsals with music director Diane Taylor-Neale, and then, once choreographer Tracy Houser came in, Friday evenings as well.

For Jean, it was a joy seeing the show come together. "You go for weeks and weeks and you listen to your principals talking and singing and your chorus trying to get the steps right. As you get near the end you have to link up all these scenes, and it's just wonderful to suddenly say, one night out of the blue, 'Wow, we've got a show!'"

The enjoyment was that much greater because this was the first time Jean had directed a Gilbert and Sullivan show--in fact, it was the first time she'd directed a full-scale adult musical of any sort. " It's a lot of time and a lot of work, but it's very rewarding and lots of fun," she says. "I'd love to do it again."

Posted September 22, 2004