{"id":10891,"date":"2019-09-05T16:52:58","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T16:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=10891"},"modified":"2019-09-10T23:22:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T23:22:35","slug":"3-great-productions-you-probably-missed-hms-pinafore-once-on-this-island-dogfight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2019\/09\/05\/3-great-productions-you-probably-missed-hms-pinafore-once-on-this-island-dogfight\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Great Productions You Probably Missed: HMS Pinafore, Once on this Island, Dogfight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It\u2019s Theatre Thursday! We\u2019re celebrating a FANTASTIC week of theatre-going by looking at not one, not two, but THREE great-to-fantastic shows\u2026that all sadly closed on Saturday. However, they\u2019re all established shows that we should see future productions of fairly soon.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n H.M.S. Pinafore<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>at Wilton\u2019s Music Hall<\/p>\n\n\n Whenever a Gilbert & Sullivan classic comes to Wilton\u2019s Music Hall, we\u2019re there. Well, whenever anything<\/em> comes to Wilton\u2019s we\u2019re there, because they\u2019re our neighbors. Hey neighbors! But their G&S productions are without fail hysterical, in a way that really lets the comic masterpieces shine. Thanks to the Opera Della Luna company, the recent H.M.S. Pinafore<\/em> continued the trend, with their game cast showing off their perfect comedic timing.<\/p>\n With an ensemble of just 8 players, many changing in and out of several roles, Opera Della Luna energetically tells the tale of the poor sailor in love with the captain\u2019s daughter, the captain\u2019s daughter who loves him back but is promised to an admiral, the absurdly funny captain who never (well, hardly ever) uses bad language, and all the confusion and hilarity that abounds aboard the ship.<\/p>\n For those of you unfamiliar with the 1878 comic opera, it takes place on a docked British warship. An older woman named Buttercup comes on board to sell some \u2018wares\u2019 which no matter what the context or show or painting always looks like a basket full of ribbon, which is like, not what I\u2019d expect sailors to need on board. Ralph Rackstraw, a sailor in the fleet, comes on deck and pretends to buy from Buttercup and then doesn\u2019t, which as someone who ran a vegan bakery stall on Brick Lane for six months I can tell you is really shitty behavior. Nothing more frustrating. Anyway Ralph is like \u2018no I don\u2019t need ribbon but I LOVEEEE JOSEPHINEEEE\u2019 who is the captain\u2019s lovely daughter (with the best voice in the cast). The other sailors are like \u2018avast ye matey, she\u2019s the captain\u2019s daughter so she can\u2019t be with you.\u2019 And then the captain, Captain Corcoran, comes on deck and sings his famous song about how he \u2018hardly ever\u2019 does a bunch of stuff and is HILARIOUS and I wish that I could find the name of the actor from the ODL website but it\u2019s incredibly confusing and I think only has the 2000-era cast lists for this show up because I googled the names and they don\u2019t look like who I need the name of, guys, so please tell whoever plays Corcoran how great he is.<\/p>\n The captain talks to the old lady Buttercup and they def have some history or future or something going on, but there\u2019s no time for that because the Admiral that Josephine\u2019s set to marry comes aboard (never seen so much coming and going on a ship) with his sister, his cousin, and his aunt and he sings a forking hilarious song introducing himself and his sister, his cousin, and his aunt. The Admiral is a bumbling fool who despite being in a very high position in the Queen\u2019s Navee knows nothing about the sea or sailing, like most men in power. He also thinks the Captain should say \u2018if you please\u2019 to his sailors whenever giving orders. The Admiral and the Captain are comedic gold and definitely the standouts here, although they do have the two best roles.<\/p>\n After the Admiral, Sir Joseph, sings about how British sailors are any man\u2019s equal \u2013 except, of course, his own \u2013 Ralph is buoyed by the thought and confesses his love to Josephine. She loves him back, but knows her duty is to marry the goofy old man so JUST LIKE NIKKI K HIGH-KICKING IT DOWN AT THE MOULIN ROUGE, she pretends not to love Ralph back which is like RULE #1 of farcey romcoms and lies IN ORDER TO SAVE HIM. HURT HIM, TO SAVE HIM, as the wise and scary Jim Broadbent told Nikki K before she didn\u2019t win the Oscar she should have won.<\/p>\n Ralph threatens to kill himself due to his broken heart and his shipmates are like \u2018eh them\u2019s the breaks matey\u2019, surprisingly cool with the very bad plan, but the luckily Josephine enters again and sees him and is like NO DON\u2019T I LOVE YOU, and while I\u2019m sure there are examples of this very shitty plot device in older works, for now I\u2019m going to blame Pinafore<\/em> for giving weak misogynists this ploy in their arsenal, that if a pretty woman doesn\u2019t love them they should threaten to kill themselves so they know it\u2019s \u2018their fault if they die\u2019 which is SOME REAL MISOGYNIST GASLIGHTY BULLSHIT.<\/p>\n My only real complaint with the story though; the rest is so fun and ridiculous.<\/p>\n In Act II, Sir Joseph complains to the captain that Josephine hasn\u2019t officially accepted his proposal yet and he\u2019s like wahhhh just make your teenage daughter marry my old ass alreadyyyyy, and the Captain suggests that maybe she\u2019s overwhelmed by his lofty rank and feels he\u2019s too far above her. Sir Joseph says pish posh and sings a song arguing that love \u2018levels all ranks\u2019, which he doesn\u2019t realize, of course, is arguing that Josephine and Ralph should be able to marry despite their<\/em> different ranks. DRAMATIC IRONY.<\/p>\n Josephine and Ralph plan to leave the ship and elope but the Captain catches them and is unmoved by their protestations of love, saying \u2013 historically noteworthy because omg he said like the worst word ever uttered on stage at that time \u2013 \u201cwhy damn, it\u2019s too bad!\u201d I KNOW! bad. Sir Joseph is horrified by the bad language and confines the Captain to his quarters. Sir Joseph asks the crew what happened to make the Captain CURSE SO BAD, Ralph spills the beans about him and Josephine, which Sir Joseph does NOT like, and so he orders Ralph to be loaded with chains and taken to the brig, which is shipcute for jail! We definitely need a completely random deus ex machina to save Ralph from this fate right about now guys! Oh good, here comes one in the form of a revelation from random lady Buttercup: She steps forward and reveals to the crew that many years ago, she practiced BABY FARMING, and she cared for two babies, one of low birth, one upper-class, and she mixed the babies up. OKAY IT SOUNDS LIKE A WAR CRIME, this baby farming, but what of this now? Well the two babies \u2013 are you ready \u2013 were RALPH AND THE CAPTAIN. So CLEARLY the big revelation is supposed to be \u2018oh wow, Ralph is actually of noble birth and the Captain is the lowly one, so their troubles with the whole marriage issue are over if Ralph chooses!\u2019 but the real revelation is HOT FUCK RALPH IS THE SAME AGE AS THE *FATHER* OF THE WOMAN HE LOVES OMG THAT IS GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. So Ralph is like 20 years older give or take the era-appropriate standard deviation than the girl he loves?? Blech. Josephine RUN\/swim.<\/p>\n So instead of like taking a beat and realizing how stupid the whole idea of noble blood is and how they\u2019ve lived in the \u2018wrong\u2019 lives long enough to prove that, instead RALPH AND THE CAPTAIN SWITCH POSITIONS. Ralph literally puts on Corcoran\u2019s uniform, says \u201cI\u2019M THE CAPTAIN NOW\u201d, and Corcoran becomes a lowly sailor. WAT. Didn\u2019t the captain earn his captaincy? Like wtf. Obviously, Josephine, the daughter of a sailor, is now too low for the Admiral to marry, so she and Ralph are cleared for takeoff despite their truly gross age difference. And now, since Corcoran is a lowly sailor, he can up and marry\u2026Buttercup! LIKE WTF. SHE JUST RUINED YOUR LIFE. And why did it take her so long to share? What an asshole!<\/p>\n Anyway it was amazing.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Dogfight<\/em> <\/strong>and Once on this <\/em>Island\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>at the Southwark Playhouse<\/p>\n