`Pirate' fans have something to sing about.

• Position: TIME OUT - Theater review

Byline: Paul Kolas

COLUMN: THEATER REVIEW

GARDNER - Gilbert and Sullivan devotees, rejoice. You may now erase the bloated largess of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" from your collective minds and embrace the gloriously imagined and performed production of "The Pirates of Penzance" strutting and prancing its way around Theatre at the Mount. Rob Houle has directed it with a ringmaster's confidence, Diane Cushing conducts her orchestra with melodious precision, choreographer Sandie Couture gracefully whirls her pirates, maidens and policeman around the stage, and set designer David Arsenault and his crew provide eye-filling background vistas for the superbly costumed cast.

And what a cast, led by Rebecca Ufema as Mable, Doug Landry as Frederic, Matthew Dombroski as The Pirate King, and Peter Landry as Major-General Stanley. Even though Friday night's performance was slightly blemished by some first- act audio difficulties that dimmed the full volume of Ufema's magnificent voice, once those were corrected, Act Two was a showcase for the power she displayed on "Oh, Dry The Glist'ning Tear," "Oh, Here Is Love And Here Is Truth," "Ah Leave Me Not Pine Alone And Desolate" and "All Is Prepared/Stay Frederic Stay!"

For those unacquainted with the playfully capricious plot, Ufema plays Mable, one of the daughters of Major-General Stanley, and the eventual love interest of Frederic, a strapping lad apprenticed since childhood to a band of pirates led by The Pirate King. As Act One opens, we learn that Frederic was originally to be apprenticed as a ship's pilot, but his hard-of-hearing nursemaid, Ruth (Nancy King), mistook "pilot" for "pirate." As he approaches the end of his indenture on the eve of his 21st birthday, Frederic wonders if Ruth is a fair representative of the beauty of women, since she's the only woman he's ever seen. The middle-aged Ruth, afraid of losing him to a younger and prettier competitor, tries her best to convince him (singing "When Fred'ric Was A Little Lad") that she is. When a group of tittering girls have a seaside frolic, and Frederic discovers what he's been missing while roaming the high seas, he lashes out to Ruth on the accusatory "Oh, False One, You Have Deceived Me." It's only one of many deceptions - and revelations - along the way to the merry finale.

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