Futuristic `Pinafore’ warped in translation

Popular Opera of Pittsfield, a New York City band of singers that performs Gilbert and Sullivan shows in Maine each year, offered one of last summer’s most memorable hits with “Pirates of Penzance.” It was gloriously well-done — funny, crisp, sophisticated — even for Maine, where the G&S Society of Hancock County presents some of the best theater in the state.

But this summer, Maine Opera Theatra (as it is now called) has beamed back to Maine for a rather disappointing “Star Trek”-based version of “H.M.S. Pinafore.” The scene opens in the 23rd century upon the Starship Pinafore, the mission of which is “to explore strange new worlds and sail the ocean blue…to go where no neo-Victorian man has gone before.”

Complete with aliens, mutants, tribbles, Vulcans, phasers, and automated bridge-doors, this “Pinafore” bends and twists as much as it can to fit the contemporary idiom comfortably into a 19th-century form.

Some of the re-written witticisms and Trek-ian schticks are quite hilarious. Trekkies are sure to enjoy picking out characters recognizably based on those from the TV show. G&S fans are sure to find enjoyment in the performances of Keith Jurosko (the Shatneresque Captain Corcoran), Ralph Rackstaw (an engine room worker who falls in love with the captain’s daughter), William J. Brooke (a high-ranking half-human/half-Vulcan official who’s supposed to marry the captain’s daughter), Katie Geissinger (as his cousin Hebe), and Joy Hermalyn (as Buttercup). The couplings of Brooke and Geissinger (in “I Am the Monarch of the Sea”), and Jurosko and Hermalyn (in “Things Are Seldom What They Seem”) are particularly funny and well-staged.

Unquestionably, applying new styles to old forms is a great idea, but this shows bears too much the mark of hubristic director Stephen Quint, who goes all out to make this a funny and faddish show, but sacrifices sophisticated artistry along the way. Too bad, too, because Quint is obviously on to something here. However, the production suffers under his unwieldy hand.

For instance, the set, meant to look like control panels aboard the Starship, looks more like a children’s clubhouse with wall drawings and jerry-built contraptions. It’s very flashy in the dark, but during most of the show, it just looks like Christmas tree lights, tin foil, patio lights, and salvaged junk. That a stage must be transported to other areas (in this case, the show is moving from Lakewood Theatre in Madison to the Grand in Ellsworth later this week) is no excuse for making it chintzy.

Similarly, the costumes replicate the Star Trek uniforms but are, in general, poorly made, unflattering, and unattractive.

All of these details might not even show up if Quint had given the show respectable artistic rigor. He has concentrated more on commercial appeal than on artistic standards. Too often, the music and pacing are too slow, the singing too muddled, and the acting too self-indulgent. Additionally, there’s a difference between G&S-style sexual innuendo and contemporary cheap thrills, and Quint sells out to the latter.

Quint has simply warped this show by re-writing too much of it too cheaply — both thematically and physically.

“H.M.S. Pinafore” will be performed 8 p.m. Aug. 13 and 14 at the Grand in Ellsworth. For tickets, call 667-9500.