I have a confession to make. I absolutely love Pirates of Penzance. Like a lot. I’ve seen who knows how many versions, from the movie made in the 80’s (featuring Angela Lansbury), to live shows, to bootleg videos. It’s an absolutely ridiculous show and doesn’t try to be anything fancy.
That said.
I have thoughts about the version I just watched.
I was scrolling through BroadwayHD and got excited because PIRATES! I missed the fine print that it was the all-male version.
You read that correctly.
Anyway, it started out normally enough. Frederick and the pirates doing their thing. Then Ruth comes out and I was very confused because it was clearly a man. Ok, so problem, that’s fine, do your thing. (The singer was good, I was just caught off guard.)
The daughters were also male. Now you expected this because I told you it was the all-male version, but remember, I missed that little tidbit. But right about this point, I got a clue.
With all that said, the production was fine, but I didn’t particularly care for it overall. And my opinion has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it was the all-male version. See, the pirates were all wearing white. Great. But then the daughters were also all wearing white. Ok, I can mostly tell them apart from the pirates because corsets and skirts, but I have no idea which daughter is which, and honestly I’m having trouble seeing which pirate is Frederick.
The major general wore red, so no problem telling him apart. But then the policeman came in and guess what? They were wearing white! (Potentially very light blue, but it absolutely read as white.) When everyone was on stage, I had a great deal of trouble telling the three groups apart. There were some things that could have been very funny, but I was so concentrated on figuring out who was who that I totally missed it.
Also the sets were very minimal, so it wasn’t like you could really tell by where they were standing or interacting with set pieces.
The singing was fine enough. The acting was fine. But for a show that I know incredibly well, I spent a lot of time being very confused.
A friend was watching it with me, and she had never seen it before. She had no idea what the story was supposed to be after watching the whole thing. So we then watched the movie version and she agreed it was much more coherent.
I guess the final verdict is watch at your own risk?