Ramlin Kamloo and the Company (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Pirates! The Penzance Musical

By Carol Rocamora

Attention Gilbert & Sullivan purists: though you may be passionate about the original, you won't be able to resist the current giddy reinvention of The Pirates of Penzance, their immortal operetta that premiered in New York in 1879 to protect its copyright from piracy (forgive me), a fate that had befallen their earlier HMS Pinafore.  

Retitled Pirates! The Penzance Musical, the current adaptation at the Roundabout Theatre is a loopy labor of love by an inspired team of collaborating theatre artists, including director Scott Ellis, writer Rupert Holmes, and choreographer Warren Carlyle. Holmes begins his uproarious update with an introduction by Gilbert and Sullivan themselves (played by David Hyde Pierce and Nathan Lucrezio, respectively), who explain that they're setting their operetta in New Orleans in this version (it was one of the stops on their national tour, and actually a target for pirates at the time).

David Hyde Pierce, Preston Truman Boyd (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Pirates! tells the improbable story of young Frederic (a dashing Nicholas Barasch), who was mistakenly apprenticed to these pirates at birth by his nurse (an outrageous Jinks Monsoon). Now that he's twenty-one, this dutiful young man will be released from his apprenticeship, and he warns these maladroit marauders that he'll soon be hunting them down. But Frederic has other problems - he's promised to marry his overbearing nurse (twice his age). Meanwhile, he's fallen for Mabel (Samantha Williams) one of the daughters of Major-General Stanley (also Pierce) who has arrived in the French Quarter with his seven daughters. His love life is further complicated by the fact that - since he was born on February 29 - he is technically only five years old, too young to marry anyone!

The growing romance between the seven pirates and the seven daughters - and the many obstacles they encounter - constitutes the remainder of the plot. (The company of actor/singer/dances is uniformly terrific).

 

Recently, I've seen Gilbert & Sullivan played "straight up" in London like a stodgy museum piece of nineteenth century operetta. In other words, it wasn't funny. But Ellis and his team have brought out the "Monty Python" spirit gestating in this wildly improbable tale, and they have highlighted its hilarious aspects.

These particular pirates are the gang that can't shoot straight - or, to provide a better metaphor - can't hold a sword straight. Whether swaggering or gyrating to Carlyle's colorful choreography, dressed in Linda Cho's equally colorful costumes, they're simply ridiculous. Moreover, the score (featuring jazzy orchestrations by Joseph Joubert and Daryl Waters) is a hybrid, including signature songs from other G&S classics, including Iolanthe, The Mikado, and HMS Pinafore ("We Sail the Ocean Blue" from the latter provides a smashing end-of-Act One number).

The Company (Photo: Joan Marcus)

It's a multi-faceted, marvelous mash-up of style and substance - vaudeville, burlesque, musical comedy, and Monty Python. The result is entertaining, winning, and joyous.

As for the performances, David Hyde Pierce "takes the cake," "steals the show," "has us in stitches," "brings down the house" - and whatever other familiar superlatives you can add to describe his priceless performance. From the moment he steps onstage to sing "I am the Very Model of the Modern Major General", he utterly captivates us with his dead-pan, tour de force interpretation. (I'm still laughing, remembering it). As the Pirate King, Ramin Karimloo is positively astonishing with his vocal as well as physical prowess - leaping, jumping, somersaulting, cavorting around the stage while singing in his strong, baritone voice.  As Frederic, the delightful Nicholas Barasch is the perfect romantic hero, and the lovely Samantha Williams sings beautifully opposite him. As Ruth, Jinks Monsoon is a commanding presence, captivating us as well with her irreverent, devilish performance.

It is argued that the show's final song - adapted from "He Is an Englishman" in HMS Pinafore - goes too far off course, with respect to the show's final message. The collaborators have retitled it "We're All From Someplace Else" - and its relevance to our immigration crisis today couldn't be more timely.  But what could be wrong with having some fun in adapting the classics, entertaining your audience, being zany, taking risks, going too far, even - and putting your heart into it at the same time, as these dedicated collaborators have done?

Pirates! The Penzance Musical

Todd Haimes Theatre

227 West 42^nd St

Tickets: https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2024-2025/pirates-the-penzance-musical/performances

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Through July 27