Best known for his semi-improvised cinematic representations of dysfunctional families and personal relationships trapped in the oppressive web of British class society, director and screenwriter Mike Leigh seemed like an unlikely candidate for a film based on the career of Gilbert and Sullivan. The surprise is that he not only has produced one of the greatest entertainment biographies of all time, one that is faithful to the effervescent quality of Gilbert and Sullivan's light operas, he has also managed to tell the story of the frustration and suffering that went on behind the scenes. In doing so, he remains faithful to the humanitarian spirit that defined his earlier work.
"Topsy-Turvy" proceeds from the time in G&S's career when critics have begun to detect a loss of creativity. Opening with the debut of "Princess Ida", we see librettist Sir William Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) in a rage over a review stating that the new work merely repeats well-worn themes that have already appeared in their work over the past 25 years. However, composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) agrees completely with the negative review and announces his refusal to collaborate with Gilbert until he has had the chance to compose a serious opera based on a lofty theme rather than another entertainment.
This coincidentally is the aspiration of film-maker John L. Sullivan in Preston Sturges's screwball comedy "Sullivan's Travels", who is tired of making comedies. This Sullivan wants to break free of contractual ties to a Hollywood film studio in order to make a film about the plight of the common man during the depths of the depression, while the other Sullivan wants to be more like Verdi or Wagner. (Sullivan did manage to create one serious opera--Ivanhoe--which remains justly neglected.) D'Oyly Carte (Ron Cook), under whom Gilbert and Sullivan are obliged to contractually, has the same attitude toward Arthur Sullivan that the film moguls have in "Sullivan's Travels": why rock the boat. Not only does the tried and true please the people, it also generates revenue. In essence, this is the primary source of dramatic tension in "Topsy-Turvy", namely the conflict between art and commerce.
Ever the hard-headed realist, Gilbert is depicted phoning the theater box-office each morning after a performance in order to record the receipts into a ledger book in his library. (One of the film's merits is its attention to period detail. The phone is an unwieldy contraption which forces people on either end to begin and end each exchange with, "I am speaking now. Can you hear me." It has been argued, by the way, that the period of the most rapid technological change in human history is exactly the period depicted in "Topsy-Turvy", when telephones, telegraphs, steamships and electrical lights were first being introduced.)
This cash nexus is reflected not only between the clash between Gilbert and Sullivan, but also in the manner in which the repertory company in the Savoy Theater struggled for a sense of dignity and accomplishment when management regarded them merely as wage labor.
In one of the most powerful scenes of the film, the principal male actor-singers meet with impresario D'Oyly Carte for a salary review. James Grossmith (Martin Savage) is told that he is to receive a 7.5 percent review, which is not only less than he expected, but undermines his sense of self-worth as an artist. Anybody who has ever been subject to a performance review in a corporation, upon which salary increases are based, will appreciate how demeaning this experience can be. Performing for Grossmith is as daunting a task as it is for modern-day performers and he resorts to the same crutch favored by many a rock star, the heroin needle. On the evening of the first performance of "The Mikado," Grossmith is shown in his dressing-room plunging a needle into a scarred arm just five minutes before the opening curtain.
The females also have it tough. Leonora Braham (Shirley Henderson), the Savoy's ingénue, is not only an alcoholic, she can't seem to find a unmarried man who will take an interest in her. As soon as she mentions that she has a young son from a previous marriage, they shun her. When co-star Jessie Bond (Dorothy Atkinson) suggests that she sing at recitals in the home of London's wealthy, so as to meet eligible bachelors, Braham complains about the class prejudices that she finds there. Meanwhile, Bond performs on and offstage flirtatiously night after night, despite a festering leg wound which she gamely has fresh bandages applied to each day.
Despite the pain and frustrations of people from top to bottom of the chain involved in producing these light-hearted operettas, when they mount the stage we and the audience are left with sheer pleasure. This is one of the great accomplishments of Leigh's film. It ranks with Ingmar Bergman's filming of an onstage performance of Mozart's "The Magic Flute." What gives Leigh's filming of G&S's classic ensemble pieces even more power is its unstinting but compassionate portrayal of the cast's vulnerabilities.
Louis Proyect The Marxism List is at: http://www.marxmail.org
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