Word: strephon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Directors John Lithgow and Jane Mushabac apparently have no use for heroes, heroines, or straight men of any sort. Strephon, the young shepherd who is fairy from head to waist and mortal on down, is usually played by romantic-lead types. Lithgow and Mushabac have cast an out-and-out comic in the role, and given him plenty of room to operate. Phyllis, the shepherdess Strephon loves, is pretty much of an ingenue part, but at Agassiz she is played mostly for laughs...
...sure whether Stephen Michaels, who plays Strephon, is miscast, or has simply been directed for all the laughs he's worth. Whichever, Strephon does not emerge as the creation of Gilbert and Sullivan. Jennifer Lee Kosh as Phyllis, however, ultimately succeeds although she seems more suited to character roles than heroines...
...smaller roles, I can find only praise for Mr. David Adam, a profound and sonorous Private Willis; for Mr. Barnet Skolnick, a portly Strephon, made up (for some reason) to look like Franz Joseph Haydn; for Miss Kay Churchill, a veritable Little Mary Sunshine of a Phyllis; and for Miss Sarita Matney, Iolanthe herself, who is a most pleasant and motherly fairy...