Jim Cooper of Wilton will direct the Troupers Light Opera when it presents a complete semi-staged production of Gilbert and Sulllivan’s Patience, or Bunthorne’s Bride, at 2:30 and 7:30 on Saturday, Oct. 3, at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 884 Newfield Avenue, Stamford. This will be a costumed production with the leads staged and the chorus seated.
Patience satirizes the contemporary aesthetic movement of the 1870s and 1880s in the form of a character named Bunthorne, who dreams up nonsensical poetry as a means of attracting beautiful women. While the women choristers are taken in, the 35th Dragoon Guards (men’s chorus) return to town to take up with the former girlfriends, only to find they are now groupies of the phony poet.
Bunthorne himself, however, is smitten by the simple dairymaid Patience, whose sensible approach to life makes a mockery of aestheticism and of the unrealistic view of human love that it spawned. Typical Gilbertian comic twists take place in Act II, with everyone finally winding up with a love interest except the undeserving Bunthorne.
Tickets are available at trouperslightopera.org. Tickets in advance are $26, $30 at the door. Student tickets are $15.
Photo shows him in Iolanthe. Far right.