Word: despard
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...essence of the play; for they parody the mechanics of melodrama while they suggest often-embarrassing affinities between a figure's old pose and his new one. Of the male leads only Stuart Rubinow displays the emotional range necessary to do justice to the hectic script. His Sir Despard Murgatroyd is first exuberantly wicked as the bad baronet who pays for his sins by contributing to the Church. Several abrupt turns of the plot later and on the right side of the law, he is a flawlessly pompous rate-payer who has spared himself the need to repent his sins...
Among the ladies, only Chalyce Brown can match his performance. As Mad Margaret, an envious witch and later wife to Sir Despard, she charges happily from wild laughter, to perfectly-controlled song to dreamy, moon-struck soliloquy. Sad to report, her part is smaller than her gifts...
...real Ruddigore, only in disguise, you know). And Mr. A. Thompson, who plays Oakapple's foster brother, Richard Dauntless, makes the most of one of Gilbert's few comic lyric tenor roles, and achieves a creditable hornpipe. So too, does Mr. Edward Schmookler, the villainous Sir Despard Murgatroyd (Oak apple's real brother, if you get what I mean). Schmookler is got up to resemble Mr. Hyde, and he rubs his hands, rolls his eyes, and flashes his tooth to great effect. Despard's intended, Mad Margaret, also needs to be mentioned: as sung by Miss Tammy Miller, this wacky...