IOLANTHE
Written by Gilbert & Sullivan.
The MIT Gilbert & Sullivan Players.
Steve McDonald, Music Director.
Stage direction by Marion Leeds Carroll.
Room 54-100, April 21-22 and 27-29.
By JONATHAN RICHMOND
GO TO IOLANTHE. It's delightfully sung, well-acted, wittily directed, and simply masses of fun.
The 25-year-old Strephon is half-man, half-fairy -- quite a predicament to be in when your immortal fairy mother, Iolanthe, always looks like a girl of 17 and your fiancee isn't convinced that your relationship with her is entirely filial. The story weaves between the absurd and the sublime, but of course ends happily.
Out of many great numbers, the performance of "Love Unrequited" by Robert DeVivo -- playing the Lord Chancellor -- tops the list. With crusty voice, precise enunciation, and beautifully deadpan wit, his portrayal of a nightmare is hideously funny. Paul Matthews, declaring that "every boy and every girl that's born alive is a little Liberal or else a little Conservative" also draws much mirth.
Jenni Harrison has a quite appropriately muscular voice for a Fairy Queen who clearly wears the pants in this show. Hitting that quintessentially Gilbert & Sullivan mock seriousness right on the nail, her singing as well as acting is quite endearing, as well as entertaining.
Kristin Hughes makes a sweet-voiced, as well as charactered, Phyllis, while Robert Bullington is a suitably effeminate, as well as amorous, Strephon. "None Shall Part Us From Each Other" flows gracefully and melifluously.
Alida Griffith is pert and charming as Iolanthe, a mother anyone would be happy to love. She is touching, too, as she steps out of the Gilbert & Sullivan world of stereotypes briefly to display real human emotion as she risks death by revealing she is the Chancellor's wife.
David Harrison (Lord Mountararat), his tongue inextricably locked inside his lip, but his voice ever broadcasting broadly and majestically, is every inch the English lawyer. Jeffrey Manwaring (Lord Tolloller) doesn't have Harrison's strength of projection, but is amusing, too. Together they make quite a pair.
The chorus is quite simply the best I've ever heard in musical theater or operetta productions at MIT. The men's voices are strong, lusty, and always dead on cue: their incantation to the "Lower Middle Classes" is glorious. The women -- as fairies -- do well too, and the acting of one and all chorus members contributes immensely to the sense of freshness and life this production displays from start to finish. Marion Leeds Carroll deserves an accolade for her keenly-observed direction.
Steve McDonald -- in charge of music -- merits much kudos, too. The strength of ensemble singing and timing apart, he makes his orchestra not only deliver Sullivan's music with zest, but with an understanding of all those little, but important, elements of wit tucked into each phrase. The costumes by Kimmerie Jones W '91 are first rate, and draw laughs in themselves. The sets -- especially the Act II set which completely covers over the blackboard of 54-100, cleverly transforming the room from lecture hall to theater -- makes imaginative use of scarce resources.
In short, this production is priceless; it's success lies well above the standard Gilbert & Sullivan show. Now you know what you're doing next weekend.
Options: Look at other stories in this issue, send us a comment, or return to our home page.
---- Copyright 1990 by The Tech. All rights reserved. This story was published on Tuesday, April 24, 1990. Volume 110, Number 21 The story was printed on page 11. This article may be freely distributed electronically, provided it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice, but may not be reprinted without the express written permission of The Tech. Write to archive@the-tech.mit.edu for additional details.