Clique-Clique

We never really get out of high school.

There are many areas of adult life in which the social quirks of our adolescence  make their presence know. How completely stupid we become when falling in love, for instance, or the way we feel a need to one-up each other's hardships ( "you have to get up at six? well, I have to get up at five forty five"). But the most prevalent carry over from our high school days is the way we continually group ourselves into cliques.

We may not call them cliques. We might call them businesses, or churches, or clubs, or social classes. We may insist, that we like EVERYONE, and get along with EVERYONE, but we know we lie. Social groupings are part of social survival. And they run rampant in the theater world.

There are the improv folks, the musical theater people, the community theater people, the fringe artists, the performance artists, and the Union. There are actors who specialize in classical theater, directors who won't touch a play unless it's a world premier, and patrons who have season tickets to the 5th Avenue and nowhere else.

I know as you read this people are protesting: "Wait a minute, I do improv AND fringe theater!" "I have season tickets to the Rep, AND am on the A list at Annex!" Good for you. There have to be exceptions, and just because there are cliques doesn't mean that crossovers are forbidden. But the lines are still drawn, the cliques still exist, and as a species we like to stay inside those lines, where we feel comfortable.

last weekend I spent some time with one of the cliquiest cliques in all of theaterdom. I am, of course, talking about the Gilbert and Sullivan society. Well, actually it was Northwest Savoyard's annual Gilbert and Sullivan production, but they all pull from the same pool. Most of the folks who do Gilbert and Sullivan don't even do regular musicals, or regular opera, they just hop around the small handful of Seattle companies who produce the repertoire of Victorian England's favorite operatic duo. (and yes, of course, there are exceptions to this rule.)

Gilbert and Sullivan, or G&S (now that I've introduced you we might as well jump straight into shorthand.) Wrote a number of frothy comic operettas, the most well known being Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Mikado. These three are the bread and butter of G&S groups. They have to cycle one in every three years or so, the same way a Shakespeare in the Park company has to do at least five productions of A Midsummer Nights Dream, for every one production of Coriolanus.

Ruddigore, the show I saw last weekend, is perhaps done slightly more often than Coriolanus, but only because Shakespeare wrote thirty nine plays, and Gilbert and Sullivan only managed fourteen. It is by no means among the duo's best or most memorable work, but it is having quite a good year. In addition to the production currently running at the Historic Everett Theater, it will be brought to the Bagley Wright theater this Summer, by the Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

I'm sure they will do it justice, too, but I doubt that production will be as inventive as the one I saw last weekend. Usually a very by-the-numbers theater, Northwest Savoyards got lucky, or smart, or both, in their choice of Danielle Villegas to direct Ruddigore. She decked the cast in sexy, Steampunk attire, threw in some dancing and creative blocking, and most improtantly, had a bare bones female chorus.  In all the past Savoyards shows I've seen, the female chorus was so large it could barely fit on stage. Once there it was given nothing to do but stand in tight rows like a bunch of bustled sardines.

The only draw back to the production was the utter lack of technical support. Microphones went in and out, emitted bursts of static, or only seemed to work in certain spots on stage. It was a shame, because the cast was quite good, and I would have like to have heard them clearly and consistently. I can only hope that the situation has improved since opening night.

If  you're already a part of this clique, then you no doubt know about its particular joys and drawbacks. If you've not yet had the pleasure, you might want to stop by. For such a cliquey clique, G&S is actually quite welcoming, and quite a bit easier to get in to than the cliques we knew in high school.