Strike Up The Band

George and Ira Gershwin wrote the music and lyrics for Strike Up The Band, with book by George S. Kaufman.  The Gershwins admired the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, their satire and the way they constructed some of them with an opening chorus of ‘maidens’ as in Patience and Ruddigore and the introduction of principal characters, as in Pinafore.  Cotswold Savoyards had opted for the original 1927 version of the show.  Looking at the pedigree of the writers and outline storyline it should be a fantastic show for a Society such as this with a strong Gilbert and Sullivan background, but I feel it lost its way.  It jumped back and forth from Sullivan to Gershwin and the audience never really had time to settle into one musical genre before they were whisked back out of it and into another.  The satire that Gilbert used in his operettas was very English and although we are not always aware of the exact references many directors translate and update for modern audiences.  This was satire against the American establishment and I am not sure a British audience fully understood it, apart from the obvious anti-war message.

It is set in Horace J. Fletcher’s American Cheese factory; he is delighted that the President has signed a new bill imposing a fifty per cent tariff on imported cheese.  Mr Fletcher then receives news that ‘some place called Switzerland’ has sent a telegram of protest and he is most unhappy.  He persuades the US government to declare war offering to finance it personally as long as it named after him.  The Swiss Hotel Owners Association makes an offer to hold the war there and Fletcher and his retinue plus his daughter Joan, Mrs Draper a wealthy lady who has designs on him, her daughter Anne, and a reporter Jim Townsend who becomes romantically involved with Joan, all go overseas.  Things do not go according to Fletcher’s plans as they cannot make contact with the Swiss Army, and it is discovered there is a spy in the camp who is trying to sabotage the war, but more importantly has been trying to ruin Fletcher’s American cheese by using second grade milk to make it. Everything turns out well in the end with each man ‘getting his girl’ and the identity of the traitor revealed.

The set was simple but effective allowing as much space for movement as possible. The triangular windows in the first act being replaced by ‘toblerone’ mountains in the second, was clever and worked very well.  The lighting and sound effects had been well designed and well cued.  The costumes were well co-ordinated and looked good on stage.

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