here's the thing...

...i try to enjoy culture and the arts as much as i can, because, let's face it, i can use as much culture and artistic input as i can get.

but man. it was hard to stomach what i just saw. gilbert and sullivan are famous for their musical theater the world over and i felt lucky that i was gifted 2 tickets to go see the pirates of penzance. so i went with an open mind and ready to be entertained...but i was just not. and i realize i'm not some fancy theater critic who knows the all about its when it comes to theater and productions and all, but this was just bad. the first issue was the sound. when it was just the bass and baritones singing, the sound was great. every word was clear and you could totally understand the songs and hear it all and appreciate the witty lyrics. but anything above that range was just higher pitched noise that ran together and was incomprehensible. yes, the very merry model of a merry modern major general song was awesome and the guy that sang it did a great job. hilarious and he stole the show...but he shouldn't have. he wasn't the lead. he didn't have the choice parts to drive the story. he was a side character that was well played and did a great job. that's all he should have been, but because the sound was so bad and the stage direction was as lame as it was (there were literally moments when people were hitting super high operatic octaves while they ran across stage [okay, that's tough and i respect it, but why have them do it?] or players were not singing and they stood there in the background not or only just slightly moving when they could have been doing something, anything interesting) he gets the highlight because he had the toughest song to sing and he nailed it. the other characters, frederic, his girl ...whatever, the pirate king what's his name, and the rest who could have had great moments on stage just kind of accepted that the crowd was there to hear the modern major general and went through the motions.

i sat through the whole thing, but could have left after the first act was over. i don't want to bore you, dear reader, with the other inane details and nit-pickiness of my poor critique, but suffice it to say that i can say i have seen pirates and let's leave it at that.

until next time i can only hope you see something far more entertaining and better staged.
keep it between the lines and play from the tips,
e