The Pirate Queen - Original Broadway Cast Recording
[IMG:L]Sony Classics
Now Available
Why did The Pirate Queen fail on Broadway? Ancillary reasons abound. There may even have been too many Johnny Depp-graced pirate movies (we must never be out of our Depps!), not to mention revivals of Peter Pan and The Pirates of Penzance.
The Alain Boublil/Claude-Michel Schonberg musical, mounted by the Riverdance producers, had a lot of Irish dancing with arms unused, which always struck me as more appropriate to soccer. There was also a superabundance of scenery and projections by Eugene Lee, as well as gorgeous costuming by Martin Pakledinaz, not to mention dramatic naval-warfare special effects by Gregory Meeh. Basic elements tended to get lost in the shuffle.
Now we have the original-cast CD, which has been rumored to be better than the show. I don't know about that, but we do get an uncluttered tete-a-tete with the score by the creators of Miss Saigon, Les Miserables and the undeservedly underexposed Martin Guerre.
The Pirate Queen tells the story of Grace (Grania) O'Malley, who succeeded her sea captain and clan-chieftain father to become master of The Pirate Queen, an Irish vessel that preyed on English shipping in the 16th century. The book of the musical (based on a novel), on which Richard Maltby, Jr. collaborated with the Frenchmen, follows history, I would guess, as loosely as a maternity gown hoisted on a mast. That, however, need not matter.
Boublil's lyrics, as translated by Maltby and John Dempsey, are no better. Here is Captain Dubhdara about daughter Grace:
[IMG:R]"Women are a myst'ry
Wild, elusive creatures
Twenty times a bother
Sometimes the closest to your heart
Are the ones you know least of."
Or take Elizabeth I's lament:
"Each day at dawn when
I choose to arise
For one moment I'll
Stand here revealed:
Something female men
Crave and despise
Which must now be concealed."
Not awful, but not brilliant either.
There are a few songs that work. Thus "Rah-Rah, Tip-Top" for Elizabeth and the English court, and "Boys'll be Boys," for Grace's unloved and unloving, politically inflicted, womanizing husband, Donal, his mates and some barmaids. Still, the language may be too anachronistic, notably when the barmaids describe Grace: "She's a sort of lady shark, as it were."
Especially disappointing are the love duet for Grace and her truelove Tiernan, "Here in This Night," and Tiernan's big lament upon Grace's marriage, promising proximity despite thwarted longing, "I'll Be There." The wedding music, too, is uninspired, and lapses into Gaelic by a singing crone are not ingratiating. On the other hand, many of the English and Irish sound too flatly American.
There is better stuff in the second act, notably "If I Said I Loved You" for Grace and Tiernan reunited, although the words do not quite fit the situation. Much the best song is the duet for Grace in jail and Elizabeth on her throne, "She Who Has All"; their confrontation number, "Woman to Woman," is less impressive. Then again, the anthem to seafaring derring-do, "The Sea of Life," is not ineffective, despite lines like "On the sea of life/ Trav'lers all are we." (Myst'ry, trav'lers—aren't the apostrophes overworked?)
The singing of the cast, headed by Stephanie J. Block (Grace), Linda Balgord (Elizabeth) and Hadley Fraser (Tiernan), is always satisfactory, though isn't the tessitura for both pirate and English queens a bit too high for two such doughty women?
"As the lovers are together for good and all, they sing:
It's time to stand and say once more
I'll say it now and I swear it's true
For once and for
Forever—I love you."
Nothing is not said once more in the show; but even "for forever" is redundant.
