‘Pirates!’ Broadway Review: David Hyde Pierce Steals a Show That’s Only Half Ship-Shape

Regardless of the role, David Hyde Pierce plays basically the same nebbish guy — and always, he’s simply marvelous on stage. In the latest Broadway production of “The Pirates of Penzance,” the role of the Major-General fits Hyde Pierce like a sparkling, perfectly polished monocle. The revival has been retitled “Pirates! The Penzance Musical,” but the show that opened Thursday at the Todd Haimes Theatre is really “The New Orleans Musical” or, better yet, “The Pilfered Musical.” The story is now set in the French Quarters and many songs have been lifted from other Gilbert & Sullivan operettas.

The best moment in this “Pirates!” would be good news for any revival. The brilliance comes early in the show with “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” and Hyde Pierce turns it into a comic patter-song showpiece without dropping either a syllable or a drop of sweat. The delightful foam on the grog here is his being backed up by Scott Ellis’ outrageous direction of a flag-waving chorus that carries out Warren Carlyle’s foot-stomping choreography to military perfection. The riotous pandemonium builds and builds, and then Hyde Pierce repeats himself with even greater success.

This Broadway and TV legend has a wonderful, younger disciple in Nicholas Barasch, who essays the far less thankful role of the show’s male ingénue. It’s tough to get laughs when you’re a 20-year-old virgin, but  Barasch gets more than his share. This carrot-topped Frederic is a spot-on parody of the fey Irish tenor, a breed that pretty much disappeared as soon as Jeanette MacDonald parted ways with Nelson Eddy. Although it is not used in this oddly renamed revival, Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” carries a most ingenious subtitle. It’s called “The Slave of Duty,” and Barasch’s performance consistently finds humor in that epigram. Frederic obtusely sticks to the letter of the law even when the law is total nonsense and totally against his best interest.

Rupert Holmes, the “Pirates!” book writer-adaptor, has cleverly transported the story to New Orleans in the 1880s. Most charming is an introduction where Arthur Sullivan (Preston Truman Boyd) and William S. Gilbert (Hyde Pierce) tell the audience why the two of them have eschewed Broadway to bring their latest work to the French Quarters instead. Equally good is a smashing opening that lifts “Good Morning” from “Iolanthe” to introduce Frederic and the pirates, followed by a rousing rendition of “I Am the Pirate King,” sung to perfection by Ramin Karimloo.

Back in 1981, Kevin Kline led a memorable revival of “Pirates,” but he lacked Karimloo’s vocal strength. Karimloo, on the other hand, lacks Kline’s enormous style and humor. Karimloo is a romantic leading man who’s lost at sea playing a comic caricature. He jumps around with great and often joint-crushing derring-do, but in the end, it is all labor and not much fun to watch someone who’s about to book a session with his chiropractor.

Now that Jinkx Monsoon has graduated from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to the New York stage, all those Hermione Gingold roles are back in safe hands again. She brings great sparkle to the nurse-maid Ruth, who wants to marry the far-younger Frederick, but the performance never really catches fire. Regarding Mabel, Frederick’s real love interest, Samantha Williams is downright screechy, yet another victim of the Disney Princess Syndrome. Mabel is a lovely ingénue from another era who has been turned into a modern-day woman who’s now more ballbuster than sweetheart.

Act 1 ends with an apology from the Major-General that the show needs a big production number, which translates into the chorus singing “We Sail the Ocean Blue” from “HMS Pinafore.”

And why not?

But my patience for being toyed with ran out at the top of Act 2 when Hyde Pierce sings “The Nightmare Song” from “Iolanthe.” I had no idea what was going on until the musical skidded into familiar turf with “A Paradox,” which is clearly from “Pirates.” It helps that Karimloo, Monsoon and Barasch sing the classic song with great panache.

The show ends with “He Is an Englishman” from “HMS Pinafore,” which has been retitled “We’re All From Someplace Else” to make it an ode to immigrants.

Good will does not always translate into good entertainment.

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