Life-long Love Affair

By Lisabet Sarai

I have a confession to make. I've been in love for most of my life - since I was about five years old, in fact. In love with a married man. Who's been dead for just a few days short of one hundred years. Not only am I enamored of this man, I've used him as a character in my writing.

I'm talking about William S. Gilbert, the master lyricist and comic genius responsible for Ruddigore, Iolanthe, The Yeomen of the Guard and the rest of the dozen or so works in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire.

I'm fond of poor beleaguered Arthur Sullivan, too, with his misguided desire to break free of his testy collaborator and their topsy-turvey world in order to write "serious" music. Indeed, neither Gilbert's nor Sullivan's solo efforts ever came close to the brilliance of their joint productions. But I'm a word girl, so it's Gilbert who really turns me on, with his penchant for abstruse vocabulary and delightfully intricate and unexpected rhymes:

When you're lying awake with a dismal headache and repose is taboo'd by anxiety,

I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in without impropriety;

For your brain is on fire - the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you:

First your counterpane goes and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;

Then the blanketing tickles - you feel like mixed pickles - so terribly sharp is the pricking,

And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.

Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle;

Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!

(Lord Chancellor's song from Iolanthe)

Or:

Our great Mikado, virtuous man

When he to rule our land began,

Resolved to try

A plan whereby

Young men might best be steadied.

So he decreed, in words succinct,

That all who flirted, leered or winked

(Unless connubially linked),

Should forthwith be beheaded.

(Pish Tush's song from The Mikado)

I've already written one Grip post (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2010/07/basingstoke.html) about my life-time love affair with Gilbert and Sullivan. One of my dearest possessions is a Modern Library edition of The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan. It's so old that it does not appear to have a copyright date. The flyleaf, however, bears an inscription from my aunt to her younger sister, my mother, dated June 20, 1940 and expressing the hope that "she will learn to enjoy the witty dialogue of Mr. Gilbert to which Mr. Sullivan set such charming tunes".

I guess my love of the dynamic D'Oyly Carte duo runs in the family. Maybe it's even hereditary.

Here's another confession - one of my most fervent secret desires. Someday I want to play the role of Mad Margaret in Ruddigore. I've never cared all that much for most G&S heroines. For the most part , they're TSTL ("too stupid to live"). They also demonstrate unfortunate tendencies toward selfishness and social climbing. The secondary female characters - Katisha in The Mikado, the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe, and especially Margaret - are far more intriguing. Katisha is the well-seasoned "daughter-in-law elect"of the Mikado, who admits to being "just a little teeny weeny wee bit bloodthirsty". The Fairy Queen, "inclined to be stout", struggles to keep her literally and figuratively flighty troupe of fairies in line as well as to mortify her own carnal impulses. And Margaret - well, she's practically a BDSM heroine, passionately devoted and forever true to the dark baronet who led her to her ecstatic ruin (or so at least I'd like to believe) and then abandoned her.

Katisha and Margaret both have fabulous solos, too, which I could probably sing since they're both contraltos rather than sopranos. My dream has a limited likelihood of being realized, however, since I've never learned to sight read music (though I can sing almost any tune after listening to it a few times). I actually did audition for a G&S role once - Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore. It was a sadly humbling experience.

Ah well. I can dream. I do write fiction, after all.

Indeed, as I noted earlier, I've written an erotic story featuring Gilbert and Sullivan, called "Opening Night", which is now available as part of my ebook short story collection Body Electric. The story imagines a homoerotic attraction between Gilbert and one of the players in the premier production of Ruddigore:

***

Gilbert found that Wilson had already installed himself in Lely's dressing room. The young man sprawled in a chair, legs carelessly apart, breathing heavily. Sweat beaded his forehead. Gilbert was perversely pleased to see that the apparently effortless performance had in fact cost Wilson something.

"Well, Mr. Wilson. That was well done, especially for the first time."

Frank grinned. "It was, rather." He leaned forward like a conspirator. "I could tell that you at least enjoyed it."

Gilbert cleared his throat. He smelled acrid perspiration, laced with lilac. "I could appreciate your talent, certainly."

"Come on now, admit it. You loved it. You couldn't take your eyes off me."

Gilbert's dizziness returned briefly. The intensity of Frank's gaze unnerved him.

"Tell me that you enjoyed it, William." Wilson grabbed both of Gilbert's hands and pulled him closer. Gilbert didn't have the wit to pull himself away. "Tell me how you didn't dare blink for fear you'd miss something. How hard your heart beat as you watched me, performing for you." The arrogance suddenly melted from Frank's face, to be replaced by raw need. "I've been trying for so very long now to get you to notice to me."

"Mr. Wilson, please." Gilbert tried without success to release himself from the younger man's powerful grip.

"Frank. Call me Frank. I want to hear you say my Christian name." He drew Gilbert's hand to his chest.

"Feel my heart, William. Feel how it's beating, for you."

Sure enough, Gilbert felt the strong, even rhythm through the damp cotton of Wilson's costume, which rose and fell beneath his palm. His own breathing was ragged and labored. On their own accord, his fingertips wandered across the young man's chest, tracing the ridges of muscle down to the abdomen. There was something about this brash youth, some kind of perfection that was almost painful.

Frank sat completely still under Gilbert's touch, his eyes moist, his lips parted. A flush climbed up his fair cheeks. Sweat-soaked blond curls clung to his brow. "Yes," he whispered. "Oh yes!"

Gilbert started, as if waking from some dream. Deliberately, he drew his hand away, trying to recover his dignity. "Mr. Wilson. You're embarrassing me, and I should think you'd feel embarrassed as well."

"I'm not embarrassed, or ashamed, William. I want you, and I don't care who knows it. You’re a comic genius, unappreciated by ordinary stiffs like Sullivan and D’Oyly Carte. And what’s more, with your bearish body and your wild whiskers and that brusque manner you adopt to camouflage your soft heart, you’re as attractive as hell."

Frank cupped his swelling groin in one hand, daring Gilbert to look away. He pointed at the noticeable bulge in the director's trousers. "You may pretend to be shocked or horrified, but the truth is pretty obvious."

"I -- you --" A knock interrupted Gilbert's sputtering attempts at self-justification. Grossmith stuck his head into the dressing room.

"Rehearsal in five minutes, Frank. Better be on time if you don't want to the old Mustachio to get into a tizzy. Oh! Mr. Gilbert, sir, I didn't realize you were here."

Gilbert rose hastily. "I was just discussing some of the nuances of the character with Mr. Wilson. Meanwhile, you should be more aware of your audience, Mr. Grossmith, before you deliver your lines."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

"Never mind. Let's get the rehearsal started." Halfway out to door, Gilbert glanced back at the understudy. "On stage, Mr. Wilson."

Frank's tone flirted with insolence. "Of course, Mr. Gilbert. Right away, sir."

***

Sometimes, given my long-time attraction to corsets, turrets and lace-up boots, I'm convinced I had a previous life in Victorian times. I seem to understand, at some visceral level, the delicious tension between public propriety and private indulgence for which the Victorians were so noted. I wonder if I might not have actually witnessed a G&S performance in person. Maybe that would explain the draw?

Who knows? History records that Gilbert had a close relationship with his wife, but could I have been his mistress? Now there's a starting point for a story.

Basingstoke

By Lisabet Sarai

MARGARET. Oh, Master! Master! -- how shall I express the all-absorbing gratitude that-- (about to throw herself at his feet).

DESPARD. Now! (warningly).

MAR. Yes, I know dear—it shan't happen again. (He is seated. She sits on the ground by him.) Shall I tell you one of poor Mad Margaret's odd thoughts? Well, then, when I am lying awake at night, and the pale moonlight streams through the latticed casement, strange fancies crowd upon my poor mad brain, and I sometimes think that if we could hit upon some word for you to use whenever I am about to relapse—some word that teems with hidden meaning—like “Basingstoke”--it might recall me to my saner self. For, after all, I am only Mad Margaret! Daft Meg! Poor Meg! He! he! he!

DES. Poor child, she wanders! But soft—some one comes—Margaret—pray recollect yourself—Basingstoke, I beg! Margaret, if you don't Basingstoke at once, I shall be seriously angry.

MAR. (recovering herself). Basingstoke it is!

DES. Then make it so.

-- From Ruddigore, by William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

---

I'm not a “squee” sort of person. I have my passions, but they're not likely to sending me spinning off into mad expostulations of delight, like poor Margaret. (The one exception is an absolutely stellar review—but there's nothing unusual about that. All authors react similarly in that situation.) I'll experience a delightful sense of anticipation when I learn about a new movie by Pedro Almodovar or a new book by Haruki Murakami or Sarah Waters. I'll savor that internal hum of excitement as I prepare for a trip to some foreign destination I haven't yet visited. Overall, though, unrestrained squeals of irrepressible glee are not my style.

Except, of course, when I hear there's a Gilbert and Sullivan troupe in town.

My love affair with G&S goes way back. I was only six when my parents took me to a concert of G&S songs that featured the legendary Martyn Green. Objectively I recognize that I couldn't have possibly understood most of the patter, but the jaunty tunes immediately had me hooked.

After that, I attended G&S performances whenever I could. I think we must have had some records of the better-known operettas (yes, this was long before CDs) because the melodies and lyrics were familiar even when I was a teen. I remember seeing a stripped down version of Ruddigore with my dad when I was in college, in a theater in the round with just a piano. I recall several exquisitely professional stagings by the D'Oyl Carte Opera Company who was in residence for two weeks in the small city nearest my home town. And the university town where I lived for more than twenty years had a local light opera group who put on a different G&S operetta every November.

I still recall the excitement leading up to that annual treat. We'd reserve our tickets as soon as they went on sale, in order to make sure we had excellent seats. As the day grew closer, I'd sometimes listen to the opera (by that time I owned recordings of all my favorites), savoring my anticipation of the moment when the orchestra would commence the familiar medley of the overture and then the curtain would rise on the town of Titipu or the Tower of London, the rocky coast of Penzance or the “fishing village of Rederring (in Cornwall)”...I could hear the melodies ringing already in my mind, the brilliant lyrics, the tripping rhymes...I'd want to jump up from my seat and applaud wildly...!

Basingstoke.

Basingstoke it is.

My parents were both G&S fans; my volume of the complete plays has a inscription to my mother from her older sister, dated 1940, so perhaps my grandparents were too. The man who became my husband revealed to me early on a penchant for the quarrelsome duo (Gilbert and Sullivan were renowned for their sometimes acrimonious relationship). I will admit that this was one of the characteristics that encouraged me to submit to his attentions. Since we've been married, we've enjoyed many G&S performances together. He's more subdued in his appreciation than I am. In the run-up to the play, he doesn't dress up like Yum Yum or do the hornpipe like Dick Dauntless or carry on about his sisters and his cousins and aunts...!

Basingstoke.

Let it be so.

Some of you will remember the Rocky Horror Picture Show phenomenon. For me, Gilbert and Sullivan are a bit like that. I don't know how many times I've seen “The Mikado” or “Iolanthe” or “Ruddigore”. I know the songs and the dialogue so well that the anticipation is half the fun. I wait with baited breath for the fantastically twisted logic that will resolve the ridiculous problems of the characters.

---

FAIRY QUEEN. You have all incurred death; but I can't slaughter the whole company! And yet (unfolding a scroll) the law is clear—every fairy must die who marries a mortal!

LORD CHANCELLOR. Allow me, as an old Equity draftsman, to make a suggestion. The subtleties of the legal mind are equal to the emergency. The thing is really quite simple—the insertion of a single word will do it. Let it stand that every fairy shall die who doesn't marry a mortal, and there you are, out of your difficulty at once!

(From Iolanthe)

ROBIN. I can't stop to apologize—an idea has just occurred to me. A Baronet of Ruddigore can only die through refusing to commit his daily crime.

RODERICK. No doubt.

ROB. Therefore, to refuse to commit a daily crime is tantamount to suicide.

ROD. It would seem so.

ROB. But suicide is, itself, a crime—and so, by your own showing, you ought never to have died at all!

ROD. I see—I understand! Then I'm practically alive!

(From Ruddigore)

---

What subtlety indeed! What mad brilliance! And the language, so eloquent and articulate! Not to mention the music, often not appreciated (as Sir Arthur frequently complained) but far more complex than it first appears, with multi-part harmony, canons, madrigals, soaring arias, dark instrumental passages that evoke the powers of hell...!

Basingstoke.

Indeed.

My love affair with Gilbert and Sullivan has even seeped into my writing. My story “Opening Night” in the alternative history anthology Time Well Bent has the initial 1887 performance of "Ruddigore" as its background, as it postulates a homosexual seduction of Gilbert by a member of the cast. My novel Incognito (which has a Victorian subplot) includes a scene set in the opera house at the 1886 Boston premier of "The Mikado". I've even toyed with the notion of an erotic ménage story featuring Dick Dauntless, Robin Oakapple and Rose Maybud (since in the play she clearly can't make up her mind between the two gentlemen).

Would that count as fan fiction?

Would anyone other than a few old farts like me even recognize the allusion?

Who cares? Gilbert and Sullivan were geniuses whose oeuvre remains outrageously entertaining even in this era of instant communication and gratification. I don't have children, but if I did, I'd be playing light opera for them on a daily basis. Of course that would make it difficult for me to stay calm and fulfill my responsibilities. I'd be moved to sing, to dance, to laugh, to weep...!

Basingstoke.

(Deep breath.)

Basingstoke it is.