11/06/08

New stage adds to fun of Savoyards' "Pirates"

by Sam Severn

Ahoy, mateys! Cast away those life preservers! They won’t be needed to survive rough musical waters this month — not if you plot your course to sail with the Northwest Savoyards’ season-opening production of “The Pirates Of Penzance.”

Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera of swords and swashbucklers has stormed saucily ashore, for a wicked three-weekend run at the Historic Everett Theatre, through November 16th.

The absurd story of Frederic the baby-faced pirate, apprenticed to the cutthroat Pirate King as a babe when his near-deaf nursemaid mixed up the profession of “pirate” with “pilot,” Director Lisa Thiroux’s version erupts into downtown Everett, in a contagious evening of swaggering salty dogs and singing sea-flunkies, hooking swords and songs with pratfalling policemen and love-starved ladies.

Frederic the Pirate Apprentice is portrayed by Matthew Lauckhart, with an eager-beaver enthusiasm of innocent youth. Ila Faubion, who sashays onstage warbling a stunning soprano solo then falls head-over-heels for Frederic, flawlessly plays the leading lady Mabel.

Thieving the spotlight from them both is the pirate’s hard-of-hearing nutzo nursemaid, zippily played by a zany Laura Abel. 

Other snappy standouts are local stage veteran Don Spiers — a smash earlier this year in Savoyards’ production of “The Music Man” — and the boisterous cast of bumbling buccaneers, dimwitted daughters, and a corps of cowardly cops.

The staging by Choreographer Carissa Meisner Smit of this pirate musical is criminally madcap. Though hook-handed and hammy, these Penzance pirates are a laugh-riot and are definitely more swash than buckle.

Costumes are by Barbara Anderson, who also conjured up magic in “The Music Man” and “The Wizard Of Oz” for Savoyards. David Springs conducts a seventeen-piece orchestra.

Long the masters of staging musical spectacles in shoebox-size venues, Northwest Savoyards has taken over the 800-seat Historic Everett Theatre for this season. The regal house and vintage vibe fit the Savoyards’ style tight as a sea-raider’s glove. Now the actors have more room to rumble and their performances at “Penzance” rocked and rattled the historic house’s walls.  The ghosts of productions past still haunting the old theater must be chuckling in anticipation at what Savoyards will do for an encore.  

   

As for “The Pirates Of Penzance,” Gilbert & Sullivan’s witty words and lyrical tunes still amaze and delight after 128 years, and make a dashing autumn night’s entertainment.

Performances of “The Pirates Of Penzance” are Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays until November 16, at 2911 Colby Avenue in Everett. Ticket information can be found at www.everetttheatre.org, or by calling (425) 258-6766.