On Saturday, Ann and I went to see Ruddigore by the same troupe that did The Pirates of Penzance last year, the Savoyaires, who do their shows at a junior high auditorium in Evanston. Musical direction by Timothy Semanik, stage direction by Kingsley Day.

Except for the hard seats, it was a good time. I understand that the work was originally the followup to The Mikado, which must have been a hard act to follow, but Ruddigore was topsy-turvy fun anyway, as Gilbert & Sullivan tends to be. Probably it helps that we have no reason, more than a century later, to compare one work too closely to another that happened to come just before it.

Ann said it was enjoyable too, partly because the story wasn’t quite as convoluted as the other productions she’s seen. Not that the story’s ever the main thing, but as she said, it was nice to be able to keep track of the characters.

All of the main cast acquitted themselves well. I was particularly fond of the energy that Jonathan Joseph Larson, a large man with a large beard, brought to the sailor Richard Dauntless, and Lane Halverson’s amusing performance of the relatively small part of Old Adam, Robin Oakapple’s faithful servant. He has his moment when he’s tasked to abduct a maiden.

There were some laughs. Maybe not as many as in Patience, especially when the Duke of Dunstable emerged in pink tights, but even chuckles are impressive in a work that’s more than 130 years old. Some clever lines I chuckled at:

RICH. And I make bold to ax your honour’s advice. Does your honour know what it is to have a heart?
SIR D. My honour knows what it is to have a complete apparatus for conducting the circulation of the blood through the veins and arteries of the human body.

ROB. My good sir, if I can’t disinherit my own unborn son, whose unborn son can I disinherit?
SIR ROD. Humph! These arguments sound very well, but I can’t help thinking that, if they were reduced to syllogistic form, they wouldn’t hold water.

MAR. Listen – I’ve come to pinch her!
ROSE. Mercy, whom?
MAR. You mean “who.”
ROSE. Nay! It is the accusative after the verb.

Of course, no joke about grammar is as funny as this.