Gilbert & Sullivan Sendup Asks and Tells With Glee

A Gilbert & Sullivan parody about gay sailors serving in their own separate Navy? On paper, the concept sounds fluffy at best, more like a glorified comedy sketch than a full-blown show. Put aside your initial reservations, however, and you’re likely to find “Pinafore!” at the Celebration Theatre a double-edged treat.

Not only is the show a giddy comic romp, it also is a wickedly incisive sendup of the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The belly laughs keep coming, informed by a rueful subtext more often than not.

One of the first theatrical directors (before the late Victorian era, the discipline of “directing” was largely unknown), W.S. Gilbert was an exacting taskmaster who wrested order from the egalitarian stew that typified theater of the day. Gilbert was famous for tailoring his productions to his performers’ strengths while downplaying their weaknesses.

Director and adapter Mark Savage is a fitting descendant of that tradition. Not only is Savage’s staging a triumph of compressed energy--it has to be on this postage-stamp stage--but it is surprisingly faithful to its source material and sharply professional in almost every particular.

The sailing on this “Pinafore!” would not have been as smooth without musical director Ron Snyder. He ensures a smooth mix of the actors’ voices, which vary from the obviously operatic to the contemporary. Ken Roht’s necessarily minimalist choreography is ideally suited to the space.

Pink is dominant in Robert Prior’s vivid set, which is as simple and functional as it is eye-catching. Mia Gyzander’s comically extravagant costumes are a hoot, while small-theater lighting expert Kathi O’Donahue’s lighting is characteristically excellent.

The production has its limitations--a slow set change here, a voice that’s only fair to middling there--but Savage has skillfully managed to gloss over existing limitations and capitalize on his actors’ talents, which, taken in the aggregate, are considerable.

Among this exceptional cast, the most considerable performance of the evening is given by R. Christofer Sands as Joseph-Josephine, the captain’s transvestite son. Josephine has fallen in love with Dick Dockstrap (Christopher Andrew Hall), a common sailor who is--gasp!--ostensibly straight.

In a sly skewing of the original plot, Josephine and Dick’s warring sexual orientations pose a far greater problem to their union than mere class differences. But, dressed in frilly female attire though Sands is, his is no mere drag routine. (Not that there aren’t some typically outrageous drag performers spliced into the chorus.)

A classically trained countertenor with comic timing as pitch-perfect as his voice, Sands redefines the very notion of drag with his rigorous, hilarious, star-making turn.

*

“Pinafore!,” Celebration Theatre, 7051-B Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 14. $22-$25. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.