On The Radar: The Yeomen of the Guard

Agassiz Theatre. April 6-8, 13-15 at 8 p.m; April 8, 9, and 15 at 2 p.m.

Evenings: $12/10 regular; $9/7 students. Matinees: $7/5 Students; $10/8 regular. Thursday night shows $5 with student ID. April 8th: Milk and Cookies Matinee; April 15th: Hack Night. Tickets available at the Harvard Box Office.

So spring break might be over, but fear not: on April 6, the revered Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players (HRG&SP) will open their annual spring production, a show that consistently has one of the largest budgets in the campus theatrical world. This year’s feature is a farcical operetta entitled “The Yeomen of the Guard,” which will run at the Agassiz Theatre. HRG&SP produce one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 14 operettas per semester, replaying shows every four years.

While this production promises to deliver the characteristic Gilbert and Sullivan humor style that the composers’ fans know and love, “Yeomen” is noteworthy for its new delivery of a Victorian-era story.

Last performed by HRG&SP in the fall of 2001, “Yeomen” tells the story of Colonel Fairfax (Noah Van Niel ’08), prisoner and falsely accused sorcerer who finds himself incarcerated in the Tower of London. While imprisoned, Fairfax manages to marry Elsie Maynard (Celia R. Maccoby ’07), a singer whose commitment is questionable: she is already engaged to a jester named Jack Point (Samuel Gale Rosen ’06). Fairfax’s rather blatant admirer, Phoebe Meryll (Jessica G. Peritz ’06) helps him to escape and hijinks ensue in typical Gilbert and Sullivan style with some surprising twists at the finale.

But what is not so typical about this rendition is the directing. Though some consider and portray theatrical farce quaint and Victorian, director Roxanna K. Myhrum ’05 advocates that this is “not [her] style” and that she sought to “take the story that’s offered… on its own terms.” Myhrum suggests that this approach both exposes the ever-appreciated comic chaos of Gilbert and Sullivan’s work and the beauty of a script that “does something to get in touch with human emotion,” she says.

HRG&SP’s interpretation promises to be an exciting reinvention of an old favorite. What’s more, the show casts the Tower of London as a puppet, lending a slightly off-beat vibe to the show. As HRG&SP President Casey M. Lurtz ’07 notes, ““Yeomen of the Guard” is the closest Gilbert & Sullivan [came] to a serious dramatic work.” The variety and hilarity in “Yeomen” promise to make it an exciting production.