See-Worthy Vessel

One way to characterize a bad show is this: The audience deserves better. At the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse, things seem to be turned on their heads. At least last Sunday, it’s fair to say, director Larry Watts’ good cast, putting its heart into Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore,” deserved a better audience.

Sunday afternoons being what they are, the evening shows of this “Pinafore” may find audiences appreciating the difficult task that the cast carries off fairly painlessly. Or maybe G&S; and satirical operettas are so out of fashion that nobody beyond hard-core fans is willing to penetrate the deliberately antiquated style.

Whatever the case, seldom has this writer seen such performing energy wasted on such duddy listeners.

Terrific numbers such as Damien Lorton’s colorful, cartoonish Sir Joseph boarding the Pinafore (“and now I am the ruler of the Queen’s na-vy!”), were greeted with--not applause really, but more like the sound of a few hands meekly clapping.

Granted, Gilbert’s story is irredeemably silly. Seaman Ralph Rackstraw (Jon Sparks) is in love with Josephine (Rosalee Sparks), pretty daughter of the Pinafore’s Capt. Corcoran (David Cramer)--who, conversely, has his eye on a woman below his social station, Little Buttercup (Marisa Copeland).

Problems arise as Joseph, who does rule the Queen’s navy, wants Josephine for his wife, while nasty sailor Dick Deadeye (Rovin Dickinson) wants everyone as unhappy as he is.

With true Victorian loopiness, Gilbert resolves this welter with what modern audiences can appreciate as absurd plot twists.

*

Watts’ cast plays the whole thing slightly tongue-in-cheek yet is careful not to fiddle with Sullivan’s sinuously elegant score, a masterpiece that happily thieves from the entire classical canon while perfecting the 4/4 time signature with tongue-twisting lyrics.

Though Watts’ singers sometimes struggle when the score turns purely operatic (especially Rosalee Sparks as a thin-voiced Josephine), they all possess the show’s essential comic spirit.

Cramer and Lorton play broadly, and it’s fine; Jon Sparks is a stalwart romantic lead. Copeland’s Buttercup feels faint but grows stronger in Act 2 with songs such as “Things are seldom what they seem” and the story-resolving “A many years ago.” Dickinson is in the uncomfortable role of being the cast’s only African American actor playing a character who’s famously ugly.

Musical director Patrick Copeland’s best idea was to cast Carol Roman and Ester Wheeler as duo pianists, flanking Watts’ charming ship deck set. Their playing is dutiful if not inspired. But it’s certainly good enough, like the rest of this show, to inspire a bit more response than the recent audience seemed willing to put out.

BE THERE

“H.M.S. Pinafore,” Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse, 661 Hamilton St. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Ends Sept. 7. $12.50-$15. (714) 650-5269. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.