WEEKEND OF BRITISH THEATER

"All the world's a stage." - Shakespeare

Certainly for the Durham Savoyards that is true. This weekend is their annual production of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. The most popular and most performed of the G & S works, it's The Mikado. G & S set the story in Japan where the monkey business is executing a wandering minstrel player who just happens to be the son of the Mikado. In true G & S fashion the music is upbeat, the dialogue fast and the quips run by before your sure you heard what you heard. The weird part for me was realizing that after having seen the play multiple times, I am actually beginning to understand it!

Durham's Mikado is a new high water mark for the Savoyard troupe. The Nevill's production, directed by Derrick Ivey and conducted by Alan Riley Jones, is styled after Japanese Kabuki theater. The characters are all in white-face with ridiculous lips, red eyeshadow reaching to their ears and the Mikado's head dress is pure Kabuki-Fuji snow white. The impact is as astonishing as the talented voices in the cast.

For those you have not seen it - tonight March 20 at 8 pm and tomorrow's two o'clock matinee are the last performances. But fret not, next year's production will be Princess Ida, one of the few G&S operettas I have not seen and already I can't wait.

And if British productions were lacking in the least, tomorrow we see Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest," likely the most popular of Wilde's works. Labeled by Wilde as "a trivial comedy for serious people," the curiosity for me is watching veteran PRT player Ray Dooley playing the part of Lady Bracknell. That alone should be worth the price of admission.

The two leading ladies, Gwendolen and Cecily have definite notions about marriage, while the family secrets have difficulty staying...well...secret. I cannot advise you to catch a later date as tomorrow is the last performance of the run.
After the matinee it would be fitting to have cucumber sandwiches for dinner but I think perhaps after a weekend of Brit theater, maybe Chinese will suffice. What's life without theater? bbf