A Festival of WS Gilbert Plays

Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria brings you comedy, tragedy, parody and romance in A Festival of WS Gilbert Plays presented at The Malvern Theatre with five shows between 21 and 24 November.

While Gilbert and Sullivan’s ever fresh comic operas have been continuously performed around the world for 150 years, like much of Sullivan’s non-operatic music, Gilbert’s plays have languished.

In a rare staging, and using just four of Gilbert’s 90 plays written between 1871 and 1911, four new directors will illustrate how Gilbert’s diverse interests and skills as a dramatist changed over 40 years.

Debuting director Danielle Zuccala, a classically-trained performer who has worked with multiple operatic companies across Melbourne, presents Creatures of Impulse. This was one of Gilbert’s earliest plays and was adapted from one of his published short stories. Its plot revolves around an inn stuck with an unwelcome guest, a Strange Old Lady, who appears not to be entirely human. Curses and hilarious antics ensue!

Debuting director Ben Klein, an experienced G&S performer and assistant director, presents Comedy and Tragedy, a play adapted from a short story to showcase the talents of American actress Mary Anderson. (Image on right - Sara Dimech-Betancourt as Clarice de Quillacq) With its ironic twist, it tells the tale of a French actress who concocts a plot to both defend her honour from a rogue and to humiliate him in front of the highest ranking members of the royal court.

Debuting director Sarah Berry, with a performing background in choirs, cabaret, and improv theatre, presents Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, a play so rarely seen it has only been professionally performed twice. Gilbert gives Shakespeare’s Hamlet his topsy-turvy treatment turning a tragedy into a comedy. While he keeps the main characters, the rhyming couplets, the play within a play and the famous 'To be or not to be' speech; none of it is as you've seen it before! (Image at top - Timofey Alexandrov as Hamlet.