"Patience; or, Bunthorne’s Bride" Flawed but Enjoyable

Historians have myriad theories regarding Western cultural cycles and repetition of history, if such a thing exists; many believe that every 40 years, certain patterns restart themselves. Thus, about two laps around the track would take us from the 1880s, when Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Patience; or, Bunthorne’s Bride” debuted in London, to the 1970s, when the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players cleverly set their current production. Joey S.C. Goodknight, a graduate student at SEAS, who plays poser poet Bunthorne, imbues his impeccable Received Pronunciation, the style of upper-class British elocution that is traditionally used in G&S productions, with a hint of psychedelic “Big Lebowski” awe as he reads out of his college-ruled poetry notebook. With minimal script alteration, the plot transfers perfectly. The poets obsessed with “aesthetics,” the returning soldiers, from Vietnam, of course, and the group of adoring female groupies all fit perfectly into the sunny scenery where director Matthew W.G. Walker ’16 sets the farce. While Goodknight and the other graduate students in “Patience; or, Bunthorne’s Bride” find the balance between 1970s referentiality and adherence to the source material far more consistently than their undergraduate counterparts, the inherent effectiveness of the setting and the dynamic energy of most of the cast partially salvage the production’s technical failings.

The graduate students, Bunthorne’s rival poet Grosvenor (Zachary P. Mallory, a student at the Boston Conservatory) and the Colonel of the returning soldiers (Benjamin T. Morris ’09, a student at GSAS), offer uproarious and musically gorgeous performances. Morris fashions a twangy Southern accent and sings in a pretty baritone as he and his soldiers compete with the aesthetes for the love of the groupies. Malloy has an immensely powerful baritone voice that is both operatic and clear—he is on a different vocal level from anyone else in the production and impressively counters his louder moments of bravado with tender softness and control. His acting is some of the funniest in the production, as he fashions his poet into a rollicking and flamboyant Robert Goulet lookalike in contrast to the tripped-out Goodknight. However, as the duo battles for the affections of the most elusive groupie, the naïve and romantically inexperienced Patience, their differing personae begin to blur. Part of this coagulation is scripted, but the concerted character work effectively drives the point home. When the two share the stage, their contrasting energies and their rapport are riveting.

The undergraduate students have a more difficult time owning the stage with the same level of gusto. Claudia D. Oh ’17, who plays Patience, expresses a relatively limited range of emotion. While Oh captures the scripted cluelessness of her character, she does not counter her denseness with enough manic energy or excitement. She seemingly conflates her character’s intellectual narrowness with shallow feelings. While the resultant blandness allows her to act as a necessary straight man in a play of domineering personalities, she seems too relaxed and level-headed in moments that should be truly madcap. Oh’s singing voice has an effortless higher register and an appropriately quick vibrato for her sudden jumps in pitch. Unfortunately, many of her words get lost in the shuffle during the songs. Whether this is an issue of an overbearing orchestra or a legitimate diction problem for Oh is unclear. Had Oh injected more gravitas into her role, however, crisper words would have almost assuredly followed. As a result, Patience’s reluctant engagement to Bunthorne and tortured love for Grosvenor do not pack the punch that they should.

The colorful supporting cast, which includes the dowdy Lady Jane (Laura A. Peterson ’16), eventually the sole remaining follower of the pathetic Bunthorne, and the “Duke” of the soldiers (Alexandra C. Tartaglia ’17) are reliable additions to the cast. Peterson offers the right amount of desperation and self-deprecation to her role, warbling about her unconditional love for Bunthorne and convincingly appearing as a comforting matriarch to her coterie of younger women. Tartaglia has one of the most of pleasing voices in the cast and delivers a high-energy performance. While not especially convincing as a man—she’s a soprano and doesn’t try to put much stereotypically masculine affectation into her spoken lines—she still works within the group of soldiers. None of the secondary characters manage to capture both the classic G&S trappings and the ’60s archetypes that Goodknight and Malloy master. Some slip into Received Pronunciation while singing but speak in contemporary American accents, while others eschew modernity altogether and give classic British performances. The inconsistencies here distract from and damage the believability of the production.

The orchestra and chorus are mostly musically strong thanks to music director, Jacob Moscona-Skolnik ’16. The only glaring exception is the violins, which can’t keep up with the fast tempi and are almost always out of tune. The chorus, made up of the additional soldiers and groupies, offers a vocally clean and theatrically enthusiastic collective performance. Walker gives them plenty to do, crafting plenty of gags involving flowers and tie-dye to further solidify the whimsical tone. Movement director Talia K. Rothstein ’17 also makes the most of the chorus’s talents, creating eye-catching courtship dances and frenetic entrances and exits. The overall impression of “Patience; or Bunthorne’s Bride” is certainly lacking in polish and relies too squarely on the brilliance of its graduate students, but it is still a zany and usually entertaining reimagining of Gilbert and Sullivan lore.