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"the funniest play you don't know"
Jul. 30th, 2005 08:48 amThat was the blurb on Shakespeare Santa Cruz's production of Engaged by W.S. Gilbert.
Well, I knew it. It's in a collection of Gilbert's non-Sullivan plays that I picked up many years ago. It was amusing enough that I'd have taken any reasonable opportunity to see it, and it merely took this long to do so.
Not only does it have strong resemblances to plays like The Importance of Being Earnest or Shaw's The Philanderer, both of which postdate it, there are also many echoes both in themes and actual phrasing to the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, most of which also postdate it.
Engaged is a parody of romantic melodrama which calls for overwrought emoting and overacting, which it got to a nice degree. We have a man (played by Eric Siegel in a chattering, Kenneth Griffith-like way) of such irresistable charms and such romantic incontinence that he quickly finds himself engaged to three women at once. He keeps referring to each of them as "my Past, my Present, and my To Come" (shades of Princess Ida's Lady Blanche and her "Inevitable Shall!") and "the tree upon which the fruit of my heart is growing." They in turn are motivated primarily by pecuniary considerations (he's rich, but stingy: "Then there's another little fireside game which is great fun. We each take a bit of paper and a pencil and try who can jot down the nicest dinner for ninepence, and the next day we have it.") You know you're in the utmost parody of melodrama in the first act when he proposes to a poor country girl who's already engaged and offers her fiance two pounds in compensation. She turns tearfully to the broken-hearted fiance and tells him that though she'd make him a true and loving wife, yet after all in these hard times two pounds is two pounds and she doubts she'd ever be worth as much to him as that.
Then there's the woman who may have inadvertently contracted a common-law marriage by declaration with a stranger whom she hasn't seen since:
I also like the declaration by Todd Adams as the darkly tortured man who's determined to pick up whichever of the two otherwise-unattached women the thrice-engaged fellow doesn't pick:
Silly, satirical, mercilessly cynical like all of Gilbert's best work, Engaged came off in a lively production here. I saw the second preview on Thursday in a shamefully half-empty theatre; the official opening is I believe tonight and it runs through the end of August. Yes, that's a hint that locals should go see it.
Well, I knew it. It's in a collection of Gilbert's non-Sullivan plays that I picked up many years ago. It was amusing enough that I'd have taken any reasonable opportunity to see it, and it merely took this long to do so.
Not only does it have strong resemblances to plays like The Importance of Being Earnest or Shaw's The Philanderer, both of which postdate it, there are also many echoes both in themes and actual phrasing to the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, most of which also postdate it.
Engaged is a parody of romantic melodrama which calls for overwrought emoting and overacting, which it got to a nice degree. We have a man (played by Eric Siegel in a chattering, Kenneth Griffith-like way) of such irresistable charms and such romantic incontinence that he quickly finds himself engaged to three women at once. He keeps referring to each of them as "my Past, my Present, and my To Come" (shades of Princess Ida's Lady Blanche and her "Inevitable Shall!") and "the tree upon which the fruit of my heart is growing." They in turn are motivated primarily by pecuniary considerations (he's rich, but stingy: "Then there's another little fireside game which is great fun. We each take a bit of paper and a pencil and try who can jot down the nicest dinner for ninepence, and the next day we have it.") You know you're in the utmost parody of melodrama in the first act when he proposes to a poor country girl who's already engaged and offers her fiance two pounds in compensation. She turns tearfully to the broken-hearted fiance and tells him that though she'd make him a true and loving wife, yet after all in these hard times two pounds is two pounds and she doubts she'd ever be worth as much to him as that.
Then there's the woman who may have inadvertently contracted a common-law marriage by declaration with a stranger whom she hasn't seen since:
I am rent with conflicting doubts. Perhaps he was already married; in that case, I am a bigamist. Maybe he is dead; in that case, I am a widow. Maybe he is alive; in that case, I am a wife. What am I? Am I single? Am I married? Am I a widow? Can I marry? Have I married? May I marry? Who am I? Where am I? What am I? What is my name? What is my condition in life? If I am married, to whom am I married? If I am a widow, how came I to be a widow, and whose widow came I to be? Why am I his widow? What did he die of? Did he leave me anything? If anything, how much, and is it saddled with conditions? Can I marry again without forfeiting it?Delivered by Adrienne Dreiss in a mournful tone, this may have been the funniest single speech in the play.
I also like the declaration by Todd Adams as the darkly tortured man who's determined to pick up whichever of the two otherwise-unattached women the thrice-engaged fellow doesn't pick:
Ladies -- one word before I go. One of you will be claimed by Cheviot, that is very clear. To that one (whichever it may be) I do not address myself -- but to the other (whichever it may be), I say, I love you (whichever you are) with a fervour which I cannot describe in words. If you (whichever you are) will consent to cast your lot with mine, I will devote my life to proving that I love you and you only (whichever it may be) with a single-hearted and devoted passion, which precludes the possibility of my ever entertaining the slightest regard for any other woman in the whole world. I thought I would just mention it. Good morning!A little like Phyllis addressing the two noblemen she's engaged to in Iolanthe.
Silly, satirical, mercilessly cynical like all of Gilbert's best work, Engaged came off in a lively production here. I saw the second preview on Thursday in a shamefully half-empty theatre; the official opening is I believe tonight and it runs through the end of August. Yes, that's a hint that locals should go see it.
