2025: The Pirates of Penzance - Hayes Theatre

 

 

 

 

 The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan, “re-wired and re-booted” by Hayes Theatre Company (Sydney) at Canberra Theatre Centre, The Playhouse, April 2-6 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 3

    
Cast & Creatives

Starring
Trevor Jones as The Major-General and more
Jay Laga’aia as The Pirate King and more
Brittanie Shipway as Ruth, Mabel and more
Maxwell Simon as Frederic and more
Billie Palin as Isabel, Barry and more/onstage swing

Director Richard Carroll
Co-Arranger & Musical Supervisor Victoria Falconer
Musical Director and Co-Arranger Trevor Jones
Assistant Director & Choreographer Shannon Burns
Set Designer Nick Fry
Costume Designer Lily Mateljan
Lighting Designer Jasmine Rizk
Sound Designer Daniel Herten
Production Manager Abbey Pace
Stage Manager Sherydan Simson

Hayes Theatre has brought the most rambunctious, humorous, outrageous production of The Pirates of Penzance from exciting Sydney to cautious Canberra – to a standing laughing cheering ovation.

Don’t miss it if you dare, or you’ll have nothing to talk about in your 3 days in the office.

The point is, of course, that The P of P is a political satire, and the Hayes’ rewiring makes not too subtle but plenty of LOL connections with the pirates of today, while telling the complex story of the moral dilemmas of the orphan Frederic learning proper behaviour.  It could all be happening in Parliament House where Frederic, after battles and promises to marry, finally realises he is really a teal independent simply asking for conflicts of interest to be dealt with through reasonable diplomatic discussion.

Google AI tells me: The Pirates of Penzance was written by the famous duo, with the libretto by W.S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan in 1879. It premiered with a single performance in Paignton, England, on 30th December 1879 and had its official debut in New York the next day, where it was an instant hit.

Penzance is a pretty bay very near the end of Cornwall in UK, a nice little harbour town remote enough for real pirates, while Paignton is easterly, just along the south coast where I used to holiday as a child and learned nice manners, just like Frederic.  G&S for me was quite gentle social satire, rather like a good David Williamson in Australia today.

But their secondary title, The Slave of Duty, had and still has much more significance.  Wikipedia tells us: The Third Socialist Workers' Congress of France was held in Marseille, France, in 1879. At this congress the socialist leaders rejected both cooperation and anarchism, both of which would allow the existing regime to continue, and adopted a program based on collectivism. The congress also adopted a motion that women should have equal rights to men, but several delegates felt that essentially woman's place was in the home…. The congress has been called a triumph of Guesdism and the birthplace of French Marxist socialism.
[  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers%27_Congress_(1879)  ]

And there are all the clues in The Pirates of Penzance.  Frederic becomes a socialist, just as did my parents and therefore I did in the following half century.  

This is where, in the Hayes’ Re-wiring, we stop laughing.  They give an extra solo to Frederic to end the operetta, about his new understanding: we must not allow ourselves to be slaves to duty when the powers that be command you to kill.  

Though G&S could not be so direct in their day, this is what they imply in making fun of the assumption that pirates are all lower class who must kill the upper class to keep their thieving business profitable; and that Major-Generals and Police should therefore imprison and kill all pirates.

Frederic, the orphan pirate, and Mabel, the upper class sophisticated daughter of the Major-General, love each other – a symbol of peace without violence.

Laugh out loud along with Misters Gilbert and Sullivan, and enjoy Hayes Theatre’s genuinely funny – and powerfully performed – theatre.  But take seriously the finale:

Poor wandering ones!
Though ye have surely strayed,
Take heart of grace,
Your steps retrace,
Poor wandering ones!
Poor wandering ones!
If such poor love as ours
Can help you find
True peace of mind,
Why, take it, it is yours!

Maxwell Simon as Frederic and Brittanie Shipway as Mabel
in The Pirates of Penzance
Hayes Theatre 2025

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2025: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  Based on the novel by Mark Haddon; adapted for the stage by Simon Stephens.  Mockingbird Theatre Company, Canberra, at Belconnen Arts Centre, March 20 – April 5 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 1

CAST:
Christopher (at certain performances) – Wajanoah Donohoe
Christopher (at certain performances) – Ethan Wiggin
Siobhan – Leah Peel Griffiths; Ed – Richard Manning; Judy – Claire White
Ensemble – Travis Beardsley, Callum Doherty, Peter Fock, Meg Hyam, Anthony Mayne, Tracy Noble
with a special appearance from Phineas Baldock

PRODUCTION TEAM:
Director/Designer – Chris Baldock; Assistant Director – Stephanie Evans
Stage Manager – Rhiley Winnett
Lighting Design – Rhiley Winnett and Chris Baldock
Projections Design – Matt Kizer; Projection Realisation & Operation – Rhiley Winnett
Music Composer – Matt Friedman; Costumes and Props – Chis Baldock and cast
Autism Lived Experience Consultants – Jacob Alfonso and Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor
Rehearsal Prompt – Liz St Clair Long



The calculation of the square of the hyptenuse of a right angled triangle is the image which informs this thoughtful presentation of The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time.  

Though the drama of the life of Christopher John Francis Boone, accurately characterised by Wajanoah Donohoe, is not exactly exciting in a conventional theatrical way – since the central character has no empathetic capacity – we find ourselves watching the story play out at some ‘distance’ emotionally.  Rather like Christopher himself, we seem to be objectively observing a documentary about adults as parents and neighbours, including their rearrangements of sexual relations, and how difficult life therefore is for a seriously autistic child, at the stage of achieving the highest score possible in Mathematics on his way from high school to university.

Intellectual determination to complete his knowledge of mysteries, from who killed the dog in next door’s garden to the explanation of Pythagoras’ theorem is the central feature of Christopher’s life.  

So, physically, Baldock and the Design Team have us sitting in straight rows on three sides of a square, watching highly stylised acting-out of the story, in terms of choreography and costume design, surrounded by large rectangular projections of words, and even mathematics, and images of practical things like trains which illustrate the action in a Christopher-like way.

And then we discover the final ruse.  We are watching in real time Siobhan and Christopher creating a play for us to understand what happened in the past, especially including how difficult Christopher’s built-in need to only always speak the truth had been for his parents, and the reasonable resolution of their lives which was achieved.

So the play within a play parallels what the theatre company is doing – artfully creating the words of a novel in living form.  This extra level is emphasised in Baldock’s production by the abstract white costuming for the Ensemble, rather than having the characters dressed in normal street clothes. 

Wajanoah Donohue and ensemble in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Photo: Chris Baldock

 This play is not presented as ‘naturalism’, but in a form designed to illustrate the issue of how being autistic, despite one’s intelligence, is fraught with difficult situations and often unfair treatment – even when other people understand that you can’t not behave in the frustrating, for them, way you do.  

Rather than presenting this now famous play with the razzamatazz of the Grand Tour by the National Theatre of Great Britain which I reviewed (on this blog) June 2018, Baldock brings the play down to size, and in doing so leaves me with a more simple focus on the issue as it is for so many people ‘on the spectrum’.

And Wajanoah’s explanation of the proof of the Pythagoras theorem – after the curtain call, as if he was Christopher but somehow out of role – was terrific.

Thank you, Mockingbird.


©Frank McKone, Canberra