The big news about the Gilbert and Sullivan Society`s ”Trial by Jury”
and ”The Zoo” isn`t Gilbert and Sullivan, but Sullivan and Rowe.
Rowe?
In 1875, Sir Arthur Sullivan composed the score for ”The Zoo” with a librettist named Bolton Rowe, and the operetta all but vanished until discovered in a London bank vault in the 1970s. It is a unique chance to hear, as it were, a new work from the Gilbert and Sullivan era, and at the same time shift focus to the composer, who often seems overshadowed by his flamboyant lyricist, William S. Gilbert.
The G & S Society is now presenting the extremely belated Midwest premiere of ”The Zoo” at the St. Ignatius Auditorium. Sullivan`s score is delightful, and Rowe proves a surprisingly witty lyricist, providing an intricate cartoon plot (for a one-act, at least) that sits along nicely with the legendary canon left behind by Gilbert and Sullivan together.
The plot is a sniffling bit of class war and peace, led by the tale of one Aesculapius Carboy, an apothecary whose station makes him ill suitor for his beloved Laetitia, at least in the eyes of the girl`s miserly father. The lovers meet illicitly at the London Zoo, where a similar cross-class affair is taking place between refreshment girl Eliza Smith and Thomas Brown, an aristocrat in disguise.
Director Carl F. Forsberg does an excellent job, both in stage managing the difficult action-a character is lowered into a bear pit as part of the shenanigans-and in mining the inherent slapstick.
The production also is enhanced by the use of Jerry Haseman as sidestage narrator, interrupting the proceedings ever so rarely to explain Victorian terms now meaningless to us. The company has less success with the familiar
”Trial By Jury” opener, singing the operetta well but not quite managing to pull off the comedy.
`TRIAL BY JURY` AND `THE ZOO`
Two one-act operettas, with lyrics by William S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan for the former, and music by Sullivan and lyrics by Bolton Rowe for the latter. Presented by the Gilbert and Sullivan Society at 1320 W. Loyola Ave., at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, through Oct. 21. Length of performance, 2 hours. Tickets are $16. Phone 299-3131.
