Abstract

Drama

Admirers of comic opera writers William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan have something new to talk about at last. For years their memories have been going back to that production of the play "Iolanthe" which Winthrop Ames staged in the long ago and which seems in retrospect about all that a production of such an opera should be. But if one may judge by its first offering, the D'Oyly Carte company now visiting the U.S. at the New York City-based Martin Beck Theater is quite capable of equaling even the memory of that now almost legendary "Iolanthe." It can sing, it can dance, and it can act. What is more, it can do all three at once, and this is exactly what the Gilbert and Sullivan operas somewhat unreasonably require. Ordinarily one must put up with a compromise, but no member of the present organization seems to ask any quarter.