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During the company’s 2022 Last Gasp Cast Bash, Malka Key continued with her delightful tradition of presenting a synopsis of the operetta the company has just produced to the tune of one of the songs from the show … entirely from memory!
Malka performed her synopsis of the company’s remounted production of Ruddigore to the tune of “My Mind is Fully Open,” otherwise known as the “Matter Patter.”
My ears are fully open and I hear the start of Ruddigore,
The opening of Act I, which is mostly free of blood and gore
We start off with the bridesmaids, who inform us Rose is still not wed.
(If this were Gondoliers then they’d be singing roses white and red.)
You’d think that as the fairest in the village, Rose would have her pick,
But just to think of starting up a conversation makes her sick.
Her parents died and left a book of etiquette to which she’s true.
Where can it be? Oh yes, it says “don’t speak until you’re spoken to.”
Her foremost suitor’s Robin who is in the town in hiding
From the curse, explained by Hannah, that his family’s stuck abiding:
Every day they must commit a crime appalling or they perish
For right now his brother Despard has this title that’s nightmarish
But his foster-brother Richard outs him right before they’re wedded
Telling Despard Ruthven’s hiding from the Baronet’s curse dreaded,
Richard’s heart says he must woo Rose and on this there’s no dissension:
What your heart says must be right, and there can be no circumvention.
Now Robin, who is going by his right name, which is Ruthven,
Tries committing minor crimes he hopes might someday be forgiven,
He is visited by Rose and Richard, happily united,
Then his ancestors come down to say the curse is being slighted.
They tell Ruthven he’s required to commit more of a whopper
(Meanwhile Despard and Mad Margaret try out living lives more proper),
But then Ruthven finds a loophole in the curse that can decide it all:
If suicide’s a crime, then they ought never to have died at all.
When the company’s 2020 production of Ruddigore was forced to close after only two performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company saved the sets, costumes and props with the intention of remounting the production as soon as it was possible to do so. When the company remounted the show in the spring of 2022, the disassembled set was taken out of storage to be reassembled. Those who were doing so, however, soon found that the very conscientious instructions left by those who had taken down the set in 2020 were occasionally incomprehensible to those who were reassembling it in 2022.
Malka Key’s song, sung to the tune of “There Grew a Little Flower,” by Mary Gregory and Clyde Gerber, was a tribute to those who had to decipher the instructions, written in “times BC” or “Before Covid!”
There lived our predecessors back in times BC,
Our industrious ancestors with their lives carefree,
But then COVID ‘gan to fester,
And they all had to sequester,
And we’re left to be the guessers about times BC.
Sing hey, lackaday,
Sing hey, lackaday, it’s a mystery
What they meant by “right step facing” or “support brace B”
Now their lives are like a fable, back from times BC
And we build as we are able from the clues there be
Here and there a sharpie label
“Side of cottage,” “leg of table,”
Or a hole to run a cable, back from times BC.
Sing hey, lackaday,
Sing hey, lackaday, it’s a mystery
What they meant by “right step facing” or “support brace B”
Now it looks as they conceived it back in times BC
Though they wrote their notes, believe it, quite inscrutably
For we went and we retrieved it,
From the storage space we heaved it,
Sometimes doubting we’d achieve it, flailing aimlessly.
Sing hey, lackaday,
Sing hey, lackaday, it’s a mystery
What they meant by “right step facing” or “support brace B.”
Eric Pasternack’s alternate lyric contribution to the company’s 2022 Last Gasp Cast Bash was a good humored bemoaning of his new status as a retiree and his recognition that his contributions to the Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company are deeply appreciated. Eric sang his song to the tune of “When Thoroughly Tired of Being Admired.”
I’m thoroughly tired of being retired
And not using my PhD degree,
For all that I waited, it’s quite overrated
I’d rather be working for free, for free.
Because I’m not lazy, it’s driving me crazy,
The sudden transition is not so elysian.
Come volunteering, no cry-in-my-beering,
I’d rather be working for free,
I’d rather be working, for free, for free.
Hire me, hire me, hire, hire, hire me!
Jo Pasternack’s alternate lyric song was in recognition that the 2022 production of Ruddigore included three people named Joe … or Jo! … Joe Andrews, the Director, Joe Allen, who played Sir Despard, and Jo Pasternack herself, Costume Mistress. Jo sang her song to the tune of “Oh, Happy the Lily.”
Oh, happy the seamstress when no rips are seen,
And, too, the director when perfect the scenes,
And thrilled is the singer whose voices is just so
But every so merry, a bowl full of cherry,
The comp’ny that stages a THREE JO(E) SHOW!
A THREE JO(E) SHOW! A THREE JO(E) SHOW!
Oh, happy the seamstress when no rips are seen,
And, too, the director when perfect the scenes,
And thrilled is the singer whose voices is just so
But every so merry, a bowl full of cherry,
The comp’ny that stages a THREE JO(E) SHOW!
A THREE JO(E) SHOW! A THREE JO(E) SHOW!
Oh, happy the seamstress when no rips are seen,
And, too, the director when perfect the scenes,
And thrilled is the singer whose voices is just so
But every so merry, a bowl full of cherry,
The comp’ny that stages a THREE JO(E) SHOW!
A THREE JO(E) SHOW! A THREE JO(E) SHOW!
Jim Brooks treated the Company to a Dr. Seuss blues rendition of “When the Night Wind Howls” at the 2009 Last Gasp Cast Bash, performed by members of the company.
Rod:
Yes, my name is Rod and that rhymes with cod,
And I Rhyme couplets night and day.
Oh, the witch’s curse makes me sing in verse,
In a Doctor Seuss-like way.
Just like One fish, two, red fish and blue,
I try, but I can’t refuse,
And I’ll never take this for one more day.
Ghosts! Help me sing tha-ah blues!
Ghosts:
The blues!
Rod:
Oh ghosts! Help me sing the blues!
Ghosts:
All right! The bluuuuues!
We’ll help you sing the blues!
Rod:
Rather rob and steal, it’s really no big deal,
But this rhyming is a crime.
Could not shoot a fox,
Would not in a box I’m rhyming all of the time.
Would not in a house,
Could not with a mouse, I can’t stop, so what’s the use?
For I’ll never take this for one more day,
Ghouls help me sing tha-ah blues!
Ghosts:
Oh Yeah!
Rod:
Oh ghouls! Help me sing the blues!
Ghosts:
Get Down! The bluuuuues!
We’ll help you; we’ll sing the blues!
Rod:
Ghost of Dr. Suess ’pears each night in puce,
And demands I repeat his words,
No! You can’t believe, my sense has taken leave.
And I know it sounds absurd!
But I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
(Spoken) Bad Baronet’s faithful 100 percent,
Oh! I can’t take this for one more day,
Art, help me sing tha-ah blues
Ghosts:
Good God!
Rod:
Oh Art, help me sing the blues!
Ghosts:
Right On!
The bluuuues!
We’ll help you, we’ll sing the blues.
Good Lord! We’re Through!
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