Amor vincit omnia

When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an Attorney's firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.
I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!

In a song that may sum up the careers of more than one cabinet minister (and not just in Britain), The Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., describes how -- by assiduously polishing apples as well as doorknobs -- he rose from lowly office boy to First Lord of the Admiralty.

Yes, it's July and it's Gilbert and Sullivan time again. Two years ago I reported on the Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society's production of The Mikado. This year, they are doing H.M.S. Pinafore, which I viewed last night.

As noted in my earlier post, you don't show up at a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta expecting either musical experimentation or philosophical profundity. These musicals were written as escapist fare. They served the mid-level tastes of Victorian society, just as Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical comedies served middle brow audiences in mid-twentieth century America.

But the operettas are unforgettably tuneful, they give a snapshot photo of the social and political currents of the day, and they both satirize public figures and parody the peculiar conventions of grand opera. Most of all, Gilbert's lyrics are just plain funny, even to us today. Think, perhaps, of an amalgam of Glee and Saturday Night Live, if that thought is even thinkable.

The entire production takes place on the deck of the H.M.S. Pinafore. The plot? Well, in a nutshell, if a large one: Ralph Rackstraw, a deckhand, is in love with Josephine, the captain's daughter (who, of course, lives aboard ship). She secretly returns his affections, but the romance is impossible because they are not of equal classes. Then Sir Joseph arrives to inspect the vessel, and -- being an absurd dandy, and a member of a (no doubt) Liberal cabinet -- reminds both captain and crew that class distinctions are only an accident of birth. ("A British sailor is any man's equal, excepting mine.") Sir Joseph also has a personal, non-official reason for his visit: to seek the hand of fair Josephine in marriage. The captain is delighted, Josephine is appalled, and Ralph is devastated.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Cripps (aka "Little Buttercup"), a woman of a certain age who brings supplies in a "bumboat" to peddle aboard ship, has her matrimonial eye on the captain. Her attentions are secretly reciprocated ("A plump and pleasing person!" he muses, as she walks away.) But, again, a loud and jolly vendor is hardly a proper spouse for a ship's captain -- class again stands in the way of true love.

Sir Joseph, his affections unaccountably rebuffed by Josephine, is about to leave in a huff, when the captain suggests that his daughter may well have felt too dazzled by his superior rank to accept his offer of marriage. This is an argument that is highly agreeable to Sir Joseph, and so he assures her, in his official capacity and as an "official utterance," that "love is a platform upon which all ranks meet." Thus reassured, Josphine turns away from Sir Joseph and throws herself into the arms of the delighted Ralph.

The outraged father shouts "damn," and the First Lord of the Admiralty, shocked at such language from an officer in Her Majesty's service, confines the now-disgraced captain to his quarters. He then commits Ralph to the ship's dungeon for his presumption in wooing a lady of gentle birth.

At this point -- deux ex machina -- Little Buttercup steps forward with a dreadful confession. She had cared for both the captain and Ralph in their infancy, and had mixed up their identities (cf. the absurd plot of Verdi's Il Trovatore, first performed just 25 years earlier). Ralph, therefore, is actually of upper class birth, while the captain belongs to the dismal lower classes. This changes everything -- Ralph emerges from the dungeon wearing the captain's uniform; the captain appears with a mop to swab the deck.

Sir Joseph immediately loses interest in Josephine. (When reminded that love levels all ranks, he replies, "It does to a considerable extent, but it does not level them as much as that.") Josephine, now being free of her unwanted suitor, joins Ralph in singing of their divine love for each other. The former captain, instantly reconciled to his new estate in life, joins hands with Little Buttercup as they sing a somewhat earthier serenade.

The entire cast sings a reprise of one of the best known songs of the production, a hymn to their common status, a status that transcends all bounds of birth and breeding.

For he might have been a Roosian,
A French, or Turk, or Proosian,
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman!

For he is an Englishman,
And he himself has said it,
And it's greatly to his credit
That he is an Englishman!

On that high note, last night's entire cast, now on stage, broke into a rollicking chorus of Rule Britannia! -- as a gigantic Union Jack descended from above and the audience whipped itself into a frenzy of applause. The subsequent curtain calls were rousing, but, by that time, could only be viewed as anti-climactic.

We all staggered out of the theater -- exhausted and not quite clear in our minds how the plot had arrived at Point B from Point A, but nevertheless exhilarated, our heads full of melodies, and untroubled by any doubt whatsoever, as I suppose intended, that the late lamented British Empire was indeed the best of all possible worlds.