Pirates! Is the Very Model of a Modern Major Debacle

Photo: Joan Marcus

The exclamation mark really is the giveaway. In the making of Pirates! The Penzance Musical, an exquisitely funny, meticulously concocted theatrical pavlova—the 1879 operetta The Pirates of Penzance by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan—has been whacked with a mallet. Musical nuance and lyrical wit have become, in most cases, broadfaced vaudevillian mugging; anything originally written with a wry wink or a satirical flourish now comes along with the tonal equivalent of a drum sting and jazz hands.