'Pirates of Penzance\' full of pizazz, humor

As a little boy attending my first live musical, I marveled wide-eyed at the whole performance, taking in as much as a 6-year-old out late on a school night could. But when the "Boy's Band" came marching down the aisles with their 76 trombones, my excitement for the magic of musical theater was at the height of its potency.\nNot until my first Broadway-caliber musical, "Les Miserables," did I experience that delight again, nor have I since. Until Saturday evening at the Theatre Department's production of "The Pirates of Penzance" by Gilbert and Sullivan.\nAs Mabel floated into the rock arch and was first introduced with comical disdain by her chatter chorus sisters, she proceeded to give her name with a colorful flourish of tones ending with a simple, single and elegant note.\nWith this image in mind, an appropriate question to ask audience members upon entrance to the University Theater this week would be, How long can you maintain a smile? The answer, then, would feasibly be as long as you can hold your tongue to your cheek.\nThe experience of Gilbert and Sullivan live for the first time is truly a magnificent, marvelous adventure -- what could be better in a musical theater experience than hearing the wordsmith lyrics of W.S. Gilbert accompanied by the posh yet effervescent music of Arthur Sullivan?\nWith a playful panache, the overture commenced and an affair of "categorical" exhibition from the mind of director/choreographer George Pinney began the evening. The fairy tale introduction to the evening's performance -- an innovation which, unbeknownst to me until much later in the evening -- was singularly unique to this production. \nThe colors of the evening continued to rainbow over the audience in various shades of brilliance, never fading, only augmenting to change the tone of comedy that emanated from the exquisite performers, past the orchestra and out to the audience. \nThe brashness of the Pirate King -- incarnated with a saucy charm and fluid voice by senior John Armstrong -- elicited the pizzazz of the pirate clan, who are ever so innocently the institution of virile honor and, interestingly enough, absurdity.\nSenior Stan Wash's noble innocence as Fredrick invited the audience to feel his sense of duty and -- though his sense love is archaic from a 21st century perspective -- his sonorous singing left all traces of disheartenment behind.\nThe female chatter chorus juxtaposed with the robustness of the pirates and police provide the means for a collective characterization from the bright-eyed actors whose energy alone was enough to mollify the audience, let alone their singing and dancing.\nBut that tongue-in-cheek humor that is so inherent in Gilbert and Sullivan came intrinsically from junior Blake Bowen with his charming yet cheeky Modern Major General. The demand for encores after individual numbers is a practice that Bowen, through his natural zesty charisma and his surprisingly well-sung tunes, could popularize again.\nAlso, senior Elizabeth Stanley's introduction as the illustrious Mabel immediately made me wish for her singing to linger. Likewise, the mere two hour and five minute performance made me wish there were more ditties, more lyrics and just more show.\nThe University Theatre closes its curtain to the musical theater genre with its final musical performed in the space of an animated, yet stylish, piece showing just exactly where the magical material we call musical theater has come.