Halloween season kicks off with ‘The Sorcerer’

Play Review


LOVE SONG—Alexis (Nick Newkirk) and Aline (Stephanie Kupfer) find a moment for romance in the Ventura County Gilbert and Sullivan Repertoire Company’s production of “The Sorcerer.”

LOVE SONG—Alexis (Nick Newkirk) and Aline (Stephanie Kupfer) find a moment for romance in the Ventura County Gilbert and Sullivan Repertoire Company’s production of “The Sorcerer.”

The Ventura County Gilbert and Sullivan Repertoire Company kicks off the Halloween season with “The Sorcerer,” an operetta whose plot centers on magic, incantations and a mystical love potion gone haywire. The work, which was first produced in 1877, was Gilbert and Sullivan’s third collaboration but their first full-length operetta.

“The Sorcerer” proved to be a portent of things to come, and several familiar G&S hallmarks make an appearance in the show.

The plot is fairly straightforward and not as convoluted as later G&S story lines: Alexis and Aline, a blue-blooded couple from the fictional village of Ploverleigh, are betrothed to be wed. Alexis, who is in a “lucid lake of liquid love,” believes that “love should unite all classes and ranks.” He engages the services of a sorcerer (using his 25 percent military discount) to cast a spell over the non-married residents in an attempt to pair them off.

There are no mistaken identities, no elaborate masquerades and no catastrophic misunderstandings, all of which populate later G&S shows. Nothing really happens until the end of Act I, when we meet the mysterious John Wellington Wells, “dealer in magic and spells,” played by Gary Saxer.

Grinning like a malevolent Mr. Hyde in midtransformation, the top-hatted Saxer is a one-man medicine show, producing a potion that he uses to spike the villagers’ tea. Gilbert’s introductory patter song for Wells includes the tongue-twisting lyrics that would become a G&S hallmark.

At an engagement party for Alexis and Aline, the villagers drink the tea and fall to the ground, unconscious. When they awaken in Act II, they fall hopelessly in love with the first person they see, resulting in a variety of “ill-assorted unions.”

Nick Newkirk is dashing as the aristocratic Alexis; his mellifluous tenor highlights one of the prettiest songs in the show: the waltzy “Thou Has the Power.”

Aline, well-played by newcomer Stephanie Kupfer, is a descendant of Helen of Troy; she refuses to drink the potion herself because of her undying devotion to Alexis. When she changes her mind and does drink, she falls instantly in love with the middleaged vicar, Dr. Daly (a perfunctory John Pillsbury).

The potion causes other mismatches, including Wells himself, who is the mortified target of affection of the ancient Lady Sangazure (Sydney Bowling).

Zach Spencer leads a compact, disciplined five-piece orchestra that plays Arthur Sullivan’s tuneful music. The costumes and set design are splendid, and the members of the ensemble perform with elegance and grace.

“The Sorcerer” provides a fascinating look at this nascent stage of the duo’s career.

“The Sorcerer” plays through Oct. 17 in the Theatre on the Hill at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts. For tickets, visit www.vcgsrc.org or call (805) 381-1246.

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