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music by Arthur Sullivan, libretto by William Henry Fuller, directed by Edward Franko

TrypTych Concert & Opera, Trinity Presbyterian Church, 2737 Bayview Avenue, Toronto

October 28-29, 2017

Sam Snifter: “A Government Clerk is a soaring soul,

And ought to be his country’s pride”

TrypTych Concert & Opera has given Toronto, and indeed Canada, a great present for Canada’s sesquicentennial by producing H.M.S. Parliament for the first time with orchestra since its premiere and tour in 1880.  Fuller, a newspaper satirist and British émigré, decided that Gilbert and Sullivan’s wildly successful operetta H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) could be converted into a satire about Canadian politics.  He wrote a new libretto for the operetta including new lyrics for the songs.  Fuller’s libretto thus became one of the first-ever English-Canadian works for the stage.  For that reason Anton Wagner and Richard Plant included it in their first volume of Canada’s Lost Plays (1978).  As the lively TrypTych production amply demonstrates, this is a gem that never should have best “lost” in the first place. 

In its day H.M.S. Parliament was a massive hit in its own right.  On February 16, 1880, H.M.S. Parliament opened at the Academy of Music in Montreal produced by the McDowell Comedy Company, run by American Eugene McDowell.  The new show became such a success the company took it on a 30-city tour over the next five months through southern Ontario and as far away as Winnipeg and Halifax.  By then Fuller’s satire of protectionist trade policies was considered no longer topical and the work faded from view until Wagner and Plant rediscovered it.  As it happens, Fuller’s satire of Sir John A. Macdonald’s “Canada First” policy, known as the National Policy, or N.P. for short, has gained new relevance and Fuller’s depiction of do-nothing government officials and endemic corruption shows that little has changed in the public’s view of Ottawa in 137 years. 

The only previous full production of Parliament after its rediscovery was in 1983 when a student group led by Moira Day at University of Toronto Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama staged it to piano accompaniment.  As it happened, tenor and conductor Lenard Whiting, co-Artistic Director of TrypTych, sang the lead role of Sam Snifter in that production.  To prepare the performing edition for the present TrypTych production, tenor and director Edward Franko, the other co-Artistic Director of TrypTych, had the difficult task of matching the words of Fuller’s libretto to Sullivan’s music since no score of the original Parliament survives.  The result is a great success.  Whiting conducts an excellent nine-instrument reduction of the Sullivan’s score, ideal for TrypTych’s small venue at Trinity Presbyterian Church, and Franko directs a well-chosen cast of seventeen.

Replacing Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. of Pinafore is Sir Samuel Sillery, K.M.G. (Knight of St. Michael and St. George) who represents the historical Finance Minister Samuel Leonard Tilley.  He is the Chief Financier of the H.M.S. Parliament and MacA wants his daughter Angelina (the Josephine equivalent) to marry Sir Joseph to help solidify Mac. A’s hold on power.  Angelina, however, loves and is loved by the lowly government clerk Sam Snifter (the Rafe Rackstraw equivalent), who works in the government’s Sealing Wax Department.  He is not totally without drive since he has invented a new type of corkscrew that he thinks will make him a fortune, especially if everyone in government is required to buy one.

H.M.S. Parliament is often viewed only as a satire of government corruption under Macdonald, but it is also a satire of H.M.S. Pinafore.  Little Buttercup of Pinafore is not the poor bumboat woman selling trinkets to sailors, but is now Mrs. Butterbun, who has a monopoly as purveyor of refreshments to Parliament.  She particularly benefits from the National Policy since everything she sells is now more expensive.  Sam Snifter is not quite the innocent young man that Rafe Rackstraw is in Pinafore.  As his name suggests Snifter spends much of his time drowning his sorrows over his hopeless love for Angelina in drink.  In an hilarious exchange between Sir Samuel and Snifter about what Snifter does all day, it is quite clear that he takes home his $400 a year for doing nothing but coming to work, reading the paper, having lunch and smoking his pipe. 

Later when Butterbun has to reveal the terrible secret that has been gnawing away her, Fuller does not parody Buttercup’s “A many years ago” in Pinafore but fits his new words to the folksong “My Love, He is a Sailor Boy”.  To the finale Fuller adds new words to the tune “The Sea” by Chevalier Neukomm to finish off his satire of the National Policy.  Sir Samuel sings, “It sends up the price of everything, / And makes the producer merrily sing”.  The greatest divergence from Pinafore is that Fuller closes the show not with the finale but with a dialogue between Britannia and her favourite daughter Canada about whether Canada is outgrowing her strength.  It ends with Canada singing the Captain’s song that she will never be untrue to Britannia. 

For the TrypTych production Edward Franko has followed the precedent set by Moira Day in 1983 of replacing this allegorical scene with the singing of “The Maple Leaf Forever” which was in 1880 the unofficial national anthem.  The song beginning “In days of yore, from Britain's shore, / Wolfe, the dauntless hero, came”, is certainly pro-British enough (which why it never became the official national anthem).  The chorus which the audience is asked to join sends the show off on a high note rather than making the audience sit through three pages of dialogue before the ending.

Parliament has an excellent cast.  Edward Larocque has an open, youthful tenor that lends a humorous air of innocence to Sam Snifter as if the character was totally unaware that working for the government actually required work.  Larocque gives a lovely performance of “A bottle fair to see” (added in 1983; in G&S, “A maiden fair to see”) with softly floated high notes.

As his beloved Angelina, Wendy Dobson has a bright, Julie Andrews-like soprano and gives a fine account of “Sorry her lot who gives her heart / To a young man who can’t support her” (in G&S, “Sorry her lot who loves too well / Heavy the heart that hopes but vainly”).  Dobson also has a way of subtly bringing out the satire in her lines with subtle emphasis.

Mezzo-soprano Victoria Marshall is a real joy throughout as Mrs. Butterbun.  Not only does she have the rich, ringing low voice that Gilbert’s many middle-aged matrons require, but she positively beams with confidence and good humour whenever she is on stage.  While the singing in Parliament is of a high level, the dialogue can be halting except when Larocque’s enthusiasm, Dobson’s primness and Marshall’s authority take charge.

Lawrence Shirkie has a smooth, British-style baritone as Captain MacA that suits the music perfectly, making his solo “Fair moon, I don’t intend / To call thee ‘Heaven’s bright regent’” (in G&S, “Fair moon, to thee I sing / Bright regent of the heavens”) one of the show’s highlights.  Robert de Vrij wields a sepulchral bass-baritone both in speaking and in singing as Alexander Deadeye.  Even with a heavy Scots accent, De Vrij clearly conveys Deadeye’s bitterness at his loss of power and his fear that the government is on the wrong course.  De Vrij’s voice is so rich one wishes that Fuller had managed to give the character more to sing than “Great Chieftain, I've important information” (in G&S, “Kind Captain, I've important information”).                

Baritone Douglas Tranquada is suitably pompous and self-regarding as Sir Samuel Sillery.  His main patter song “When I was a lad” has nothing to do with polishing handles, but rather actually charts how Sillery’s historical equivalent Tilley rose from being an errand boy in a druggist’s store to government office.  Since everyone in Parliament, except Butterbun and Angelina, is in government, there is not the same class distinction between Sir Samuel and Angelina as there is between Sir Joseph and Josephine in Pinafore.  To replace this, Fuller takes a tack that only increases the show’s relevance.  Instead of a social difference of rank, Fuller’s patronizing Sir Samuel believes that there is a difference in intellect between his lofty self and the silly woman Angelina.  Tranquada strongly emphasizes this negative aspect of Sir Samuel, which helps us sympathize with the indignant Angelina even more than with G&S’s Josephine.  On the other hand, Sir Samuel’s difficulty saying his Fs (not in the text) is funny at first but soon becomes trying. 

Edward Franko directs the operetta with a keen sense of the currency of its comedy.  It’s dangerous to update a work revived for its historical interest, but no one will begrudge Franko’s introduction of Timbits and double doubles into Butterbun’s refreshment cart.  Franko makes full use of the auditorium with many entrances and exits through the audience.  Politicians hand out their business cards to the audience and Sir Samuel openly bribes the front row with (fake) cash. 

Lenard Whiting’s nine-member ensemble sounds like a much larger group and play together like a tightly-knit chamber group.  Whiting often chooses tempi slightly slower than usual, but given that the audience will be hearing a new text for the first time, this is a reasonable and helpful approach to take.  In any case, the principals and chorus have admirably clear diction so that none of Fuller’s words go missing.

TrypTych Concert & Opera were able to give only two performances of H.M.S. Parliament in Toronto.  Soon the co-Artistic Directors and TrypTych will be moving to Kenora and H.M.S. Parliament will be their first staged production for the community.  After that they hope to take the show on tour.  That would be a great boon indeed, because H.M.S. Parliament is one of those rare works that is both historically important and is still genuinely funny.  It gives us a glimpse of the well-known Canadian penchant for satire when the Dominion was still in its infancy.  Tryptych’s present production shows how eminently stage-worthy the show is and one could hardly hope for a more enjoyable way to have a glimpse of Canada’s past with a view of how little has changed in so many years.  Kudos to TrypTych for reviving this work so successfully.  Kenora, you’re in for a treat, and if all goes well, so will many more communities in Canada.

       

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photos: (from top) Cast of H.M.S. Parliament, Edward Larocque as Sam Snifter (centre); Edward Larocque as Sam Snifter; Lawrence Shirkie as Captain MacA and Victoria Marshall as Mrs. Butterbun; Wendy Dobson as Angelina, Lawrence Shirkie as Captain MacA and Douglas Tranquada as Sir Samuel (foreground), Forbes Brown as Sergeant at Arms (background). ©2017 Huw Morgan. 

For tickets, visit www.tryptych.org.