Gilbert and Sullivan

Trial by Jury and H.M.S. Pinafore were given a magnificent production last night by the Harvard Gilbert and Sullivan Players.

Gilbert and Sullivan is a world bearing no great relation to any other theatrical or musical art. If the proper romping tone is perfectly sustained throughout, any failings become trivial; if it is not, the audience will be making paper planes of the programs before the production is ten minutes old.

Director Richard Grand and most of his cast have mastered this tone; they maintain an almost perfect balance between the mock-serious and the ham. Some of the principals were weak singers, and the articulation--an important quality in Gilbert and Sullivan--was uneven in both productions. But the G. and S. Players always know what they are doing, and they seem to take pleasure in it.

The cast for both Trial and Pinafore was essentially the same. Morgan Wheelock was the judge, "and a good judge, too." He has mastered the difficult art of patter singing, and it is a pity he did not take the patter role in Pinafore, Sir Joseph Porter. Sir Joseph was played by Jeffery Lewins; he has a fine manner but lacks the driving acidity of tone the patter songs demand. He was more successful speaking than singing.

Frederick Brozer, on the other hand, sang very well indeed; but his speaking voice gave Pinafore an unfortunate Brooklynese note. Alison Keith, an old hand with G. and S., speaks and sings with great skill; her Little Buttercup was the best performance of the evening.

The male lead, George Brown, has an excellent voice and a great understanding of his roles. He sustained an expression of exquisite blankness throughout Trial which was most appropriate for the ineffectual defendant. In Pinafore, he performed his soupy lines and songs with a properly elaborate sobriety and with fine articulation. Gilbert would have been pleased.

Virginia Loomis, whom Brown rejects in the first operetta and marries in the second, has a small but pretty voice. Like Lewin she has a perfect manner, and she is very pleasant to look at.

Both productions are well staged, lavishly costumed, and have very good sets. They serve as object lessons in the art of staging operetta on a tiny stage.