Word: monnen
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Unfolding simply, the silly plot follows the courtroom encounter of a woman (Sarah Downs) trying to prosecute her chicken-hearted ex-fiance (William Monnen) for breaking off their engagement. Particularly delightful is Dennis Crowley as the bespectacled judge who falls helplessly in love with Angelina, the plaintiff. Crowley's sparkling voice and facial expressions ripple throughout the stage, especially excelling in his solo about why he became a judge...
...momentum never waning, the cast easily metamorphoses during the two-hour Pinafore production: Trial by Jury's defendant, played by Monnen, becomes Pinafore's handsome young hero, Ralph Rackstraw. Crowley assumes another leadership position as the ship's Captain Corcoran, and a newcomer to the evening's spectacle, Sebastian Knowles, plays the pompous Sir Joseph Porter. All three men, along with Craig Bierko as Dick Deadeye and Jo Milroy as Little Buttercup, give the evening's most superb performances. Crowley successively displays the Captain's frustrations in trying to convince his daughter Josephine (Nancy Fatzick) to marry Sir Joseph. Countering...
...help expecting an exceptional performance from actors of an exceptional age. The Gilbert and Sullivan Players get only one from their four imports--Monnen is sweet-voiced and convincing in the perilously starry-eyed role of Frederic. He has the rare ability of keeping a straight face--and keeping the audiences' faces straight--while he slings around such epithets as "blushing buds of everblooming beauty...
Uskali and Sneath have one thing in common that the four other leads glaringly lack: a bursar's card. Jayne S. West (Mabel) and William R. Monnen (Fredric) are voice students at the Boston Conservatory of Music, and Dennis Crowley (Major-General) and Hope Devenish (Ruth) are grown-up singers with several years of professional experience. All four have--as their parts call for--first-rate voices, but their advanced years make their performances troublesome...
...Murgatroyd she renounced (David Haughton) sing the tale of their love; the actors literally embody the subjects of their song--a "pretty little flower" and a "big oak tree." Overall, the cast is in fine singing and speaking voice, though the stilted dialogue overpowers Weary at times, and Monnen's Cockney accent seems to have a mind of its own, coming and going at will. But there's no need to carp. Acting in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera is mainly a question of facial expression and stage poise. All of the principals mime and move exceedingly well...