Ed's talk: Trashing Gilbert and Sullivan

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Trashing Gilbert and Sullivan

I accidentally saw some of this production of "Pinafore" from Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater last night.

I came in on one of the more conservative sections which, besides the tinny orchestra, featured perfectly inept singing all around and pointless mugging and tap dancing. Occasionally, when G and S were allowed to show through, however dimly, one could see how infinitely better they were than all this nonsense and, though I did witness some of the tap dancing scenes especially the dreadful travesty on "For he is an Englishman", I decided I'd punished myself enough and only returned for the final bows hoping to find who to blame for this mess.

Well, this wasn't very helpful but see my linked title for the small Times' review.

There is a name in Europe for this, "Eurotrash" and, I suppose, we may as well use "Ameritrash" for this kind of crap.

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