The "orphan/often" misunderstanding early in the play has been cut from most productions for decades by directors who didn't have a clue how funny it could be if performed as high comedy. Here every bit of silliness in the script is brushed off and made funny again. Too many G&S productions are stodgy, treating the music as sacrosanct and the humor as too dated to get a laugh. What makes both versions special is the approach to the original material. Fortunately, someone decided to tape a live performance of this newer version, capturing much more of the energy and audience response which was missing from the earlier film. Eventually it was redone as a film which was very entertaining but lacked too much of the excitement of live stage. Though nothing in the credits mentions it, this production is obviously based on the Tony-winning 1980 Joseph Papp Shakespeare in the Park production, which starred Kevin Kline and Linda Rondstadt and was a massive hit on Broadway and later in the West End in London.
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