Thespis

 
‘Thespis’ is the lost G&S opera and it is described as ‘An Entirely Original Grotesque Opera’ and I tend to agree with that!

It is not your classic G&S and I guess that is what I expected to see but having said that I can understand what Thespis means to G & S fans as Gilbert & Sullivans first collaboration of work. The Theatre was full of G&S fans as I thought it would be, keen to see this lost opera. The average age of the audience was 65 I think which made me feel quite young….although I did notice a few youngsters possibly getting their first taste of theatre. Personally I found ‘Thespis’ to be a strange show! I only managed a chuckle here and there, not all that funny really. As Director James Wright said in his notes it is different from any other G&S piece and it certainly is!
In a nutshell ‘Thespis’ is a story about aging Gods on Mount Olympus and a group of travelling actors who take their places while the Gods go down to Earth to find out why people have lost interest in them but the actors cause chaos and the Gods return and banish them back to Earth and punish them.
Most of the music for ‘Thespis’ has been lost, except for a couple of pieces, one of which was used later on in the well known ‘The Pirates of Penzance.’ The rest of the music and songs in the score are selected pieces.

I didn’t quite know what to expect and I came away feeling a little disappointed with Thespis but I have to say that the performers and James and the Musical Director John Ferguson did their best to work with what is after all an incomplete opera. Timothy Henty and Anthony Baker did well with the adaptations of the orchestrations and Libretto, it must have been a huge task.

In this Australian Premiere production of ‘Thespis’, James did a reasonable job directing his actors with the material he had to work with in this piece and managed to link it all together mostly successfully with the selected score. His choreography was simple and very typically G & S style. James succeeded in creating the one dimensional set he wanted, it was indeed very, very one dimensional and I am not sure it worked in this theatre. With just the one set all the way through in the eye view of the audience with only the addition of curtains in the second act it was a little boring and in my eyes a bit of dimension wouldn’t have gone astray. There was a Bridge to one side of the stage that the performers entered on to via the auditorium which I found a bit distracting.
The music seemed a little disjointed to the dialogue at times but the selected score by Arthur Sullivan and Offenbach was well played by the orchestra and perfectly conducted by John creating a lovely tight sound.

The costumes designed by Phoenix Zhou were a highlight of the show for me. They were colourful, well made and appropriate for the era. Very impressive to see a show fully costumed properly and I feel that Phoenix’s talents as a costume designer will very much be in demand by theatre companies everywhere. Congratulations Phoenix!
Lighting design by Francis Croese started off interesting but then quickly became basic and very straight forward but was suitable for the staging.

Now moving on to the performances……… The gods: Lucas Richter was a very young Jupiter but he did an outstanding job maintaining his older character and his singing was extremely good and strong.
Ilsa cook gave a standout performance as Mercury playing the cheeky character with ease, her delivery was excellent and her vocals were strong.

Judith O’Shea was an excellent Diana and was suitably cast as the aging god with good acting and nice vocals.
Andrew McGrail made a very likeable Apollo and Edward Burger was fun as Mars with some great characterization.
The Mortals: Ron Pidcock playing the title role of Thespis gave his character just the right amount of melodramatic acting, a very strong enjoyable performance.

It was different, even though I know it is perhaps a tradition of the era the show was written in to have the role of Sparkieon played by a woman dressed up as a man but it worked with Tracey Hendy doing a great job of being albeit a very ‘pretty’ man. Tracey’s mannerisms were very convincing but it was kind of strange when she/he sang in female voice.

Felicity Caterer was convincing and sang beautifully as Nicemis the soubrette and gave a nice performance.
Kyp Iacovou gave a good comic performance as the Company Manager Sillimon.
Claire Colthup looked absolutely delightful onstage, she spoke and sang strongly with wonderful diction and her voice carried beautifully throughout the theatre.

Whilst on the subject of voice projection, I know it is traditional not to use mikes for G & S but a lot was lost, particularly the dialogue in such a large theatre as the Alex and I really think that ‘Thespis’ would have been better suited to a smaller more traditional theatre which would have given it that old fashioned feel of the G & S era I think James was trying to achieve with the footlights etc. Also, I am big on actors using correct accents for whatever role they are playing and I found it annoying that Australian accents were coming through with some of the actors dialogue…it just sounded wrong in what should be a well spoken era.

There were some notable cameo performances from Jamie Moffat as Tipseion who was funny and had a great Scottish accent, Jessica Teo as Pretteia, Austin Moore as Timidon and Rebecca Muratore as Cymon all gave memorable performances. The rest of the company did a good job as well and appeared to be enjoying themselves on stage.

It was an interesting afternoon's entertainment and for Gilbert & Sullivan fans it was a fantastic opportunity to see this ‘lost’ work and by all accounts The Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria did an admirable presentation of the Australian Premiere season of ‘Thespis’ for their audiences.

Anne Dewar is well known in Musical Theatre circles and has over 35 years experience in both professional and non – professional Theatre, Pantomime and Television appearing in Commercials, Mini Series and in Comedy Sketches on Rove Live. Anne has played many roles in Musical Theatre. Her favourites include Dolly Levi in ‘Hello Dolly’ and Miss Adelaide in ‘Guys and Doll’ receiving a Music Theatre Guild nomination for best actress and also received a Lyrebird Nomination for her role of Vicki Nichols in ‘The Full Monty’. Anne recently won a Lyrebird award for her role of Bloody Mary in South Pacific.

Anne has worked with many theatre companies including Nova, Whitehorse, CLOC, Dandenong, Festival and Phoenix. She has also designed sets for many shows and directed and choreographed productions, her most recent credits are directing the Australasian Premiere of the comedy play ‘M*A*S*H’ for Phoenix, SPAMALOT for SLAMS and earlier this year directed GREASE for FAB NOBS Theatre Co.