Sub-Par Steampunk or Second-Tier Disney?: Stratford's Pirates of Penzance

The Stratford Festival has a long history with the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Many remember with great fondness the Festival's seminal production of The Mikado in the eighties, which had several revivals and a Broadway run. The productions of the other operettas that followed were just as handsomely dressed and casted (great Canadian stars such as Brent Carver and Maureen Forrester all had their turns in these productions), if not met with the same critical fervor. In 1961, The Pirates of Penzance had its first non D'Oyly Carte production at the Festival. So I was really excited to see the return of Gilbert and Sullivan to the festival.

I was not the only one; my little brother of seven years was seeing his very first play at the Festival the afternoon we attended, and he loves pirates. Particularly the ones who aren't very good at being dastardly.