Our Summer Of Musicals Is Over

Our summer of musicals is over.

We did not make it even halfway through the musical productions we contemplated attending.

“The Fantasticks” received its first performance Friday night at Theater In The Round—and our former landlady was present and, via email, offered one urgent word of advice: “Don’t”.

“H.M.S. Pinafore” opened a couple of weeks ago at The Guthrie Theater. The Guthrie “H.M.S. Pinafore” is adjudged to be among the most incompetent and idiotic presentations ever imposed upon theatergoers anywhere.

Word in the Twin Cities is that The Tyrone Guthrie Estate sent a representative to see the show—and that The Guthrie Estate immediately afterward requested that Tyrone Guthrie’s name be removed from the theater.

The production is apparently so embarrassing that mental retardation is the primary requirement for sitting through the show. The production is said, by all, to evoke nothing so much as a cheesy 1970s television variety show. Half the persons who have seen the production call it “The Village People Pinafore”; the other half refer to the show as “Gilbert And Sullivan And Sonny And Cher”.

The production has set back fifty years Minneapolis’s reputation as a sophisticated theater center.

Not surprisingly . . . The Guthrie “H.M.S. Pinafore” has been picked up for nationwide telecast by PBS.

Perhaps it will share airtime, during fund drives, with Helmut Lotti.