No 6 -- April 1977 Edited by Michael Walters
MOLESEY OPERATIC SOCIETY, The Geisha, Vine Hall, Molesey, Sat. 12 March 1977.
The Geisha is a musical comedy that I have always wanted to see, but this was the first opportunity I have had to do so. I have known it only from some old records of individual songs, and 78s of orchestral selections. The music always seemed very pleasant and pretty: it is generally ceded to be Sidney Jones's best piece. On seeing it, however, it became obvious why nobody bothers to do it now. It is not a second Mikado, though Jones should not be unduly blamed for failing to prove a second Sullivan when one looks at the trivial lyrics he was forced to set:
Happy Japan, garden of glitter,
Flower and fan, flutter and flitter,
Land of bamboo, (juvenile whacker),
Porcelain too, tea-tray and lacquer
Happy Japan, happy Japan.
(Compare that with the opening chorus of The Mikado and you will see what I mean). The Geisha was first performed in 1896 at Daly's Theatre with Marie Tempest as O Mimosa San, Letty Lind as Molly Seamore, Hayden Coffin as Fairfax, Louis Bradfield as Dick Cunningham, and Huntley Wright as Wun-Hi. Nowadays it strikes as rather "old hat", the evocation of a view of Japan and a theatrical style which are both dead. Nevertheless, it has possibilities and could be made into an interesting stage show. The interesting thing was that, in spite of all its obvious drawbacks and shortcomings of performance, I couldn't help liking it. It is a tattily constructed piece encumbered by too many superfluous characters. There seems no justification for continuing to play midshipman Stanley by a woman (originally, I assume, to get over the problem of employing juveniles) but in any case, the part could easily be cut as he contributes nothing to the plot, and has virtually nothing to say. (It might be worth noting too that my evening was made by the presence in the audience of the Society's president, Rita Hunter, who almost touched me getting to her seat!) The plot of the piece is thin, the dialogue poor, and it is much too long, with songs plonked in at inappropriate moments for no obvious reason. On checking with the score afterwards I found that it had in fact been cut quite considerably, but not enough. The first act played for an hour and twenty-five minutes, which is too long for an act in which almost nothing happens! The piece received rather heavy-handed treatment in this production - it lacked pace and sparkle; entrances and exits were messy, and there was a great laxity on the picking up of cues. The actors did not know their lines - nor, in some cases, their moves, which, on the last performance, was unpardonable. The hall was small and dingy, with bad, muddy acoustics, and rather unsuitable in which to use an orchestra, which frequently drowned the singers, none of who had very powerful voices. I should certainly have preferred piano accompaniment. Chorus diction poor. The sets, on the other hand, were beautiful, they were made by the Society. Fred Atkey (Fairfax) had an unfortunate lisp which I found most unpleasant, and he managed to massacre the best song in the piece "Shtar of my Shoul" - as it became in this production! Jean Mellor (O Mimosa San) was very pretty in face and voice, but fought a losing battle with the orchestra. The best performance was that of Julia Robinson (Molly) who also had the best voice, but tended to bounce around rather too much - it became irritating after a time. Walter Hawes (Marquis Imari) had a good voice but a rather amateurish style of acting. Charles Arnold (Wun-Hi) was a very accomplished comedian, but his oriental Frankie Howerd style was, I felt, wrong for this part. His second act song - the famous "Chin chin Chinaman" was very funny, but totally irrelevant! MICHAEL WALTERS
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