Ben Abbott has done it again.
The local playwright has written a funny, fast-moving, crowd-pleasing melodrama that will delight all the lords and ladies, lads and lasses—and pirates (arrgh!)—in the house.
The Piratess, on stage at The Great American Melodrama in Oceano through April 25, gives any audience looking for fun and farce just what it needs.
There’s adventure, swordplay, disguises, love potions, and plenty of slapstick. The script is tight and—to the extent that any comedic melodrama really can be—coherent. The several sets that frame the action are perfect, and the costumes and wigs (by Renee VanNiel) are a delightful combination of camp and corny.
Of course, Abbott hasn’t created this pleasing production all on his own. He wrote the two-act play in consultation with the Melodrama’s very creative artistic director John Keating, and director Eric Hoit has taken the words on the page and run with them on this exciting maiden voyage.
The delight of this production is in the details. The fight choreography (by Dan Klarer) is polished. The scenic design, building and painting (credited to Hoit, Martin Ramirez, and Rachel Humbles respectively) are impeccable (the moon-bedazzled backdrop is a sight to behold).
And don’t forget the props (the most unrecognized and under-appreciated role in the theatre, I believe). None of the swaggering swashbuckling or hilarious potion-fueled antics of the lovestruck characters in The Piratess would be possible without them.
There’s even a whole page in the program detailing the history of the production’s brass and steel swords—using mighty words that illuminate the theatrical experience: “You are witnessing a lineage of legendary steel, forged in England, shaped in Colorado, and now blazing brilliantly onstage right here in Oceano!”
The printed program also bulges with pirate lore: “Know Your Ship,” “Pirate Jargon 101,” and the words to the sea shanty “Drunken Sailor.” But in general, the characters in The Piratess cleave to a more refined vocabulary (not many feisty “arrghs” to be found here), and the actors mostly (and wisely) refrain from camping it up à la Johnny Depp.
This restraint adds a layer of likability to the characters, and all of the actors embrace the goings-on as if they plan to play their roles indefinitely.
Audrey Cirzan (free-spirited and charming), Casiena Raether (playing the title role as if it were written for her), Dori Duke (delightful in a dual role), and Rachel Tietz (what can’t she do?) are fierce playing parts that bring them to the center of the action and attention.
Jeff Salsbury (multi-talented and loose-limbed), Joshua Kenebrew (always precise and always hilarious), and Toby Tropper (what can’t he do?) support their female cohorts throughout in a most gentlemanly fashion.
The Piratess is a keeper—on par with Erik Stein’s clever Under the Boardwalk, which has been staged more than once at the Melodrama. I’m all in for this show, and you should be, too. As the program advises: “Avast, ye theatre-goers, and lend an ear!”