Word: ruthven
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Ruddigore's plot is long-winded and strange. The main character, Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, the baronet of Ruddigore, is hiding in a small English village in order to escape a family curse. A misguided witch doomed each successive baronet to commit one crime a day or be killed. Ruthven left his brother, Despard, back at Ruddigore to assume the title of baronet and fall victim to the curse. Meanwhile, having adopted the clever pseudonym "Robin," Ruthven falls in love with the village sweet-heart, the prissy flake Rose Maybud. For the rest of the first act, Ruthven competes with...
...whole premise of a curse that forces one to be "naughty" is Britishly weird, and as the driving dramatic element of the plot is inadequate. The second act, set in the castle of Ruddigore with the ninny Ruthven assuming the role of evil baronet, is humorous at first; the effect of the spooky forbears of Ruthven stepping out of their portraits is cool for a while. But when the spirits all start convincing Ruthven to be "bad," it just gets inane and silly. The conversion of Despard and Margaret from the morally loose characters of the first act to puritanical...
...leads do attempt to lend substance to this thin material. Brian DeVries is charming as the hapless Ruthven, flailing about like a singing Bertic Wooster. Tori Jueds is strong as the prim Rose Maybud, though one gets frustrated with her etiquette-obsessed, lightweight character. Rose is most interesting when interacting with her social opposite and some-time-fiance, the lusty sailor Richard, played on some evenings by Douglas Miller. Richard should be pure comic relief for the audience: a nautical libertine among the prim British. Unfortunately, although Miller's voice is strong and expressive, his stiff, blocky stage presence...
Perhaps the most compelling performance was given by Danton Charas Ruthven's evil brother Despard. Before Despard's reformation, Char exudes a snaky, sly, and deliciously sinister stage presence; he retains the unnerving cool of a villain even after be reforms, tantalizing the audience with the hopes Despard might return to his former, dastardly but decidedly more interesting ways...
...curse, inflicted upon the family by a witch burned at the stake by one of Ruthven's ancestors, decrees that each succeeding baron must commit a crime each day or die in agony. Thus exposed, Ruthven must abandon Rose and return to Ruddigore Castle and begin his life of crime. After incurring the displeasure of the ghosts of his ancestors for performing crimes deemed too paltry (he forges his own will and disinherits a son he does not have), Ruthven discovers a way to escape the curse, and, in typical Gilbert and Sullivan style, live happily ever after...