When a Merry Maiden Marries
Production information:
Personnel: Singer, pianist, director
Lighting: simple lighting, can be performed almost anywhere
Props: Hand props & lectern
When a Merry Maiden Marries tells the story of the rocky road from spinsterhood to matrimonial bliss in words and song. It is never a straight road, and there are many detours en troute. Including Gilbert & Sullivan’s best arias from the Savoy Operas, Frances McCafferty’s portrayal is a mixture of comic genius and sublime singing. Not to be missed!
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Background
The inspiration to write When a Merry Maiden Marries came out of a casual conversation with a friend who suggested I create a show for our mutual friend, the opera singer, Frances McCafferty.
Having known Frances for many years both as friend and performer, I know, as do all her fans, that she lights up any stage on which she appears. She is a natural stage creature and has an extraordinary ability to communicate directly with her audience. She has an innate understanding of dramatic truth and, while an opera singer of international reputation, is also a comedienne of the first order. She knows in her bones that in order to be funny, you have to be deadly serious. So, I knew that no prisoners would be taken if what I was proposing was in any way less than first class!
Frances has performed many of the major Gilbert and Sullivan contralto roles. I was aware, however, that they had never been presented in the way that the patter songs have long since been established as fair game for an evening’s entertainment. Moreover, there are at least two plays about George Grossmith, the performer who created most of the patter roles. (He was also the author of The Diary of a Nobody.) But there was nothing for the ladies.
Almost all the Savoy Operas are about the pursuit of love and marriage. In most of them, after appropriate trials and tribulations, the young love interest tends to live happily ever after, while the older folk either never quite make it, or end up in some kind of a compromised coupling. Thus was born the idea of finding a way to create a musical theatre piece using the contralto arias (as well as a few others). I wanted to find a way of making the evening more than just a series of songs held together by a “bald and unconvincing narrative”, and to link them together in a dramatically convincing way. Hence the idea of the pursuit of the state of married bliss for the older maiden. Yes, she does eventually get her man, but it is by no means a straightforward journey.
The challenge, then, was to create a monologue which would link the songs and also create a dramatic whole. From the very start, I knew instinctively that I wanted to use Gilbert’s own words to do this. I decided that I would use anything he wrote for the Savoy Operas, and for any character. The only allowance I gave myself was to change the occasional time reference, or personal pronoun to suit my own dramatic ends. The result is, I hope, an entirely new Gilbert and Sullivan evening.