Pirates! The Penzance Musical

Time Out

25-04-2025

Broadway review by Adam Feldman
This show is of a kind that I shall dub an operettical:
A British-Broadway hybrid that is cleverly synthetical.
It starts with operetta of the comical variety
That Sullivan and Gilbert wrote to tickle high society.
The Pirates of Penzance, a pageant witty and Victorian,
Premiered in 1880 on our calendar Gregorian.
It still is entertaining but perhaps not in a date-night way;
It seems a bit too fusty for revival on the Great White Way.
So Rupert Holmes has come along to pump some Broadway jazz in it:
To add a little spice and put some Dixieland pizzazz in it.
And thanks to these injections, neither rev'rent nor heretical,
We now have Holmes's model for a modern operettical.
Pirates! The Penzance Musical | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus
Best known for Drood (and also for his hit 'Piña Colada Song'),
He hasn't wrecked the story or egregiously forgot a song.
But to ensure the whole endeavor's jazzier and bluer leans,
He takes the show from Cornwall and resets it down in New Orleans.
The Crescent City's sass and brass have quite rejuvenated it
As Joe Joubert and Daryl Waters have reorchestrated it.
(They've also added melodies that never here have been afore,
On loan from Iolanthe, The Mikado and from Pinafore.)
With silliness and energy the show is chockablock, well-set
Amid the brightly colored NOLA streets of David Rockwell's set.
And now that we have looked at questions musico-aesthetical,
We move on to the plot of this diverting operettical.
Pirates! The Penzance Musical | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus
The Pirate King swashbuckles on a large if not momentous ship
Where Frederic, turning 21, is ending his apprenticeship.
And when this duty-driven laddie reaches his majority
His conscience will demand that he accept the law's authority.
Upon that time, young Frederic knows, though he may feel a loss acute,
His former pals, the pirates, he will have to fight and prosecute.
(Unless, that is, some hitherto-undreamed-of technicality
Should come to light and complicate his noble plan's legality.)
But what if Frederic's former nurse, the sorely misbegotten Ruth,
Discovers in some document an old and long-forgotten truth?
It might, if this scenario's not strictly theoretical,
Entail a major conflict in this model operettical.
Pirates! The Penzance Musical | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus
Scott Ellis's direction is all tongue-in-cheek dramatical
And Warren Carlyle's dances are enjoyably emphatical
But notwithstanding those behind-the-scenesters' benefactions here,
It's fair to say the actors are the principal attractions here.
The Pirate King's embodied by a glist'ning Ramin Karimloo
(Inspiring more dropped panties than you'd find in any harem loo)
And you could comb through New Orleans and all surrounding parishes,
And never find a Frederic as pluperfect as Nick Barasch's.
The Drag Race legend Jinkx Monsoon, all blowsy eccentricity,
Brings Ruth to life with vocal chops and facial elasticity.
Performances italicized (and not just parenthetical)
Combine to lift the spirits of this lively operettical.
Pirates! The Penzance Musical | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus
Samantha Williams makes a lusty Mabel; Preston Truman Boyd
Delivers his tap-dancing like an ably-programmed humanoid.
But David Hyde Pierce steals the show, I say with no cajolery.
His Major-Gen'ral is a master class in brilliant drollery:
A rapid-patter songster with aplomb matched by no other's style
(And daughters pirates yearn for, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers –style).
In glorious precision, Pierce elicits every gazer's smiles
As lovably and nimbly as he did when he played Frasier 's Niles.
Pirates! The Penzance Musical | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus
The modern world is full of stress, so go and have a party, brah,
And shake it like a necklace made of gaudy beads at Mardi Gras.
Enjoy this Broadway hybrid that is tuneful and poetical:
A most delightful model of a modern operettical.
Pirates! The Penzance Musical. Todd Haimes Theatre (Broadway). Music by Arthur Sullivan. Libretto by W.S. Gilbert. Adapted by Rupert Holmes. Directed by Scott Ellis. With David Hyde Pierce, Ramin Karimloo, Nicholas Barasch, Jinkx Monsoon, Samantha Williams, Preston Truman Boyd. Running time: 2hrs 30mins. One intermission.
Post scriptum:
These rhymes of mine, I grant you, may not all be perfect, but they were
The best that I could do—and face it, standards are not what they were.
I'm just a humble swimmer in this lyrical aquarium;
If W.S. Gilbert's what you want, then go unbury him.