Princess Ida

A truly light operetta

by Bill Rodriguez

You'd think Gilbert & Sullivan's Princess Ida would have been staged more often than it has been in recent years. Cross-dressing, martial roll-reversal, even feminist revolution of a sort is on tap. Ocean State Light Opera is currently taking a try at the lesser operetta and has found a few opportunities for genial hilarity.

It's less frequently performed because William S. Gilbert provided a relatively inactive story and an uninspired libretto; it doesn't even have one of his trademark tongue-twisting patter songs. Princess Ida is operetta-as-lump-of-clay, an opportunity for individual performances or clever direction to shape it into something worth seeing.

As usual, the storyline is delightfully silly. The court of King Hildebrand (Ken McPherson) is waiting for King Gama (Kevin Harrop Valentine) to show up with Princess Ida in tow, on the date specified by treaty. Twenty years before, at age one she was married to his son, who at the time was an unseemly twice her age. Gama does show up, but Ida, he explains, has made other plans. She is heading a university for women, where they have sworn off men ("nature's sole mistake") and marriage.

Seeking to change her mind, hubby-in-waiting Prince Hilarion (Stephen DeCesare) sets off for Castle Adamant, site of the university, along with a couple of bachelor friends. All three disguise themselves as women to sneak in and mingle. Although the women they will face fancy themselves to be warriors (albeit holding battleaxes rather than rifles, which "might go off"), the men sing that "expressive glances will be our lances," and will brandish nothing more than flowers. (Director Marilyn K. Levine has one of the trio wear a mustache, to provide an extra laugh and to take advantage of a couple of opportunities to play with the text.)

Of course, they are found out when companion Cyril (Mark Conley) drinks too much wine and blurts out his heart's desire in "Would You Know the Kind of Maid." Despite her father and brothers being held hostage to her marriage contract, principles rather than parents at first dominate Princess Ida's concern. (The role is double cast, with Joanne Mouradjian to perform on August 29, 31 and September 6. The night I attended, Norma Caiazza didn't muster the feminist/feminine fury that could light a fire under the role.)

As royal grouch King Gama, Valentine best demonstrates the kind of over-the-top ridiculousness that these characters are meant to inspire. Humped like Richard III and with a voice like the solicitous hangman in Blazing Saddles, he limps across the stage the picture of oblivious obnoxiousness. Similarly effective as a collective sight gag, the trio of King Gama's sons (David W. Price, Ron Rathier and Bill O'Neill) are like three clanking, inept Don Quixotes ("Politics we bar, they are not our bent;/On the whole we are not intelligent").

The 1884-style proto-feminism on display is pretty toothless when it goes for the jugular, needless to say. That men, Darwinian descendants all, are still "ape at heart" is about as trenchant as the jibes get. Gilbert had more fun playing with fanaticism, such as having chess pieces prohibited at the universities because they are capable of mating. (Not such a far cry from the Victorian custom of the time to drape piano "legs" because their shapeliness was embarrassing.)

The best voice by far is the rich, booming tenor of DeCesare, supported by the enjoyable OSLO orchestra. Usually the company's cast is sprinkled with professional singers on Actors Equity waivers, but not in this production. The satisfactions of this rendition of Princess Ida -- and there are a few -- come from fun-loving amateurs.

Princess Ida will be presented by Ocean State Light Opera on weekends through September 7 at the Wheeler School Theater, Angell Street, Providence. Call 331-6060.