Word: rackstraw
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...always gratifying to witness a performer improve his role, and this production affords that gratification in triplicate to staunch Harvard Dilbert and Sullivan patrons. John McKean seems to have found, in Ralph Rackstraw, the Gilbertian lead to which he is best suited. The part calls for rapid changes of character: from a caricature of soulfulness to impetuosity to prideful rage to rapture to despair to pompous authority and back, finally, to rapture. That McKean can make so many transitions so rapidly is itself a feat worthy of praise; that he makes them so smoothly and so convincingly is simply amazing...
Miss Schechtman had to fill in for the ailing ingenue on 2 day's notice, and her performance is quite good, if a bit weak in song. Anthony Thompson, on the other hand, sings magnificently in the role of Rackstraw, but acted somewhat woodenly. Consequently, the first act duet, and the "Dungeon Cell" song, lacked the verve of the rest of the show. Here Sullivan can be blamed. The parts of Josephine and Rackstraw get the worst musical treatment in the score, and even then D'Oyle Carte players have trouble with them...
...only Ralph Rackstraw hums a little. Babies hum at the breast, and mothers hum while rocking them. Children hum at play; workmen hum at work. No company is without its office hummer who strides the halls humming his favorite pop or Paganini. Pablo Casals hums while playing the cello. Why do humans hum? In the current Journal of Auditory Research, a psychiatrist offers a couple of answers...