STAGE REVIEW : ‘Yeoman of the Guard’ Tends to Bog Down Under Its Own Weight

If the moral dilemma of capital punishment is an unlikely topic for an operetta, evidently no one informed Gilbert and Sullivan when they collaborated on “Yeoman of the Guard.” Perhaps the Victorian duo’s dramatic instincts buried that issue in their usual comic melange of frustrated lovers and confused identities.

The San Diego Gilbert and Sullivan company’s respectful revival of this creaky British historical pageant at Balboa Park’s Casa del Prado Theatre is equally ambivalent about the work’s focus. During the overture, director Welton Jones has staged a pantomime that vividly underscores the brutality in the Tower of London in Tudor times. It is the romantic intrigues and sentimental wooing, however, that receive the most attention throughout the remainder of this “Yeoman” production.

The plot of “Yeoman” is sparked by the attempts of youthful Phoebe, sung by mezzo Suzanne Keiper, to rescue Colonel Fairfax, tenor Max Chodos, from his untimely beheading in the Tower. That Fairfax is to be unjustly beheaded on a trumped-up charge has stirred in the lass only a modicum of moral indignation; she is much more distressed that a handsome young man on whom she has set her fancy is to be taken from her. Keiper’s saucy attitude and vocal command make her one of the delights of the show.

Would that Chodos had evidenced even a hint of swashbuckling hero in his sadly sweetish, wooden Fairfax. And his nasal tenor crooning only compounds this dramatic weakness. Soprano Betsy McLean as Elsie Maynard, the young woman who eventually wins Fairfax’s heart, sings with such brilliance and operatic grace that she nearly compensates for this meek hero. Her innocence and sincerity provide a welcome foil to Keiper’s coquettish scheming.

Among the men in the cast, burly baritone Joseph Grienenberger stands out in his role as the Tower’s head jailer and assistant tormentor. He is one of the few on stage who really relishes his role, finding in this brute of a torture administrator a romantic’s heart and a latent yearning for the artist’s calling. His cagily clumsy dance with the jester Jack Point is the closest thing to a show stopper in a production that tends to bog down under its own weight.

George Weinberg-Harter, a veteran of the local company, scores a near miss with his Jack Point. Always nimble with a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song, Weinberg-Harter has a handle on the role’s vocal inflection, but not on the jester’s physical presence. His stock, storybook pose coupled with a mincing gait not only wears out his welcome, but dissipates the empathy the audience should feel for his almost tragic character, a perpetually dejected sort whose vocation is to amuse his betters.

The real strength of this “Yeoman” are its robust chorus numbers and its well-balanced vocal ensembles. Musical director Hollace Koman has coaxed a resonant choral sonority from her troops that enlivens the stage and points to Gilbert and Sullivan’s grand opera aspirations that lie just below the surface of this opus from the twilight of their joint careers.

John Redman’s stone-gray utilitarian set and Cindy Cetinske’s brightly hued period costumes give the production the genial distancing of an illustration in a children’s book. The pit orchestra is well-disciplined and plays in tune. If only Koman had increased the musical pace and Jones tightened the action, this “Yeoman” might have begun to sparkle.

As it is, it sits on stage with all the allure of an English steamed pudding.

Performances of “Yeoman of the Guard” continue evenings Friday and Saturday, with a final matinee performance Sunday.