Happy (Not) Birthday, Frederic!

Seeing as 2007 is not a leap year, I thought I'd get this in today:

King:(Chant)
For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I've no desire to be disloyal,
Some person in authority, I don't know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,
Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February, twenty-eight
days as a rule are plenty,
One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty.
Through some singular coincidence-- I shouldn't be surprised if it were owing
to the agency of an ill-natured fairy--
You are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year,
on the twenty-ninth of February;
And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you'll easily discover,
That though you've lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays, you're
only five and a little bit over!

Ruth: Ha! ha! ha! ha!
King: Ho! ho! ho! ho!

Frederic:
Dear me! Let's see! (counting on fingers)
Yes, yes; with yours my figgahs do agree!

All:
Ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho! ho!

Frederic: (more amused than any)
How quaint the ways of Paradox!
At common sense she gaily mocks!
Though counting in the usual way,
Years twenty-one I've been alive,
Yet, reck'ning by my natal day,
Yet, reck'ning by my natal day,
I am a little boy of five!

Ruth/King:
He is a little boy of five!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

All:
A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! , etc.

(Ruth and King throw themselves back on seats, exhausted with laughter)

Frederic:
Upon my word, this is most curious-- most absurdly whimsical. Five-and-a-quarter! No one would think it to look at me!

Ruth:
You are glad now, I'll be bound, that you spared us. You would never have forgiven yourself when you discovered that you had killed two of your comrades.

Frederic:
My comrades?

King: (rises)
I'm afraid you don't appreciate the delicacy of your position, my boy: You were apprenticed to us--

Frederic:
Until I reached my twenty-first year.

King:
No, until you reached your twenty-first birthday (producing document), and, going by birthdays, you are as yet only five-and-a-quarter.

Frederic:
You don't mean to say you are going to hold me to that?

King:
No, we merely remind you of the fact, and leave the rest to your sense of duty.

Ruth:
Your sense of duty!

Frederic: (wildly)
Don't put it on that footing! As I was merciful to you just now, be merciful to me! I implore you not to insist on the letter of your bond just as the cup of happiness is at my lips!

Ruth:
We insist on nothing; we content ourselves with pointing out to you your duty.

King:
Your duty!

Frederic: (after a pause)
Well, you have appealed to my sense of duty, and my duty is only too clear. I abhor your infamous calling; I shudder at the thought that I have ever been mixed up with it; but duty is before all -- at any price I will do my duty.

King:
Bravely spoken! Come, you are one of us once more.

Frederic:
Lead on, I follow.

Although I've an excellent CD performance, I've been casting around for a good DVD of Pirates as well. (Before you say anything, I've tried the Kevin Kline/Linda Ronstadt one and don't like it.) I checked out this old 1982 BBC version from Netflix, but the disk came cracked. Next I'm going to give the 1985 Stratford Festival performance a chance.

The one thing I can't stick, but which I've often seen, is the compulsion performance groups seem to feel when performing Gilbert & Sullivan, especially this one, to camp it up. All wrong, of course. Pirates should be played absolutely straight. The humor will take care of itself, thank you very much.

This isn't to say there isn't plenty of room for stage business. (With three separate choruses of pirates, policement and sisters roaming about? Are you kidding me?) But the tomfoolery must be kept within the bounds of the story. Once the Pirate King ceases to be "the Pirate King" and starts being "a knowing actor playing the Pirate King," mugging for the audience to show how we're all savvy to how silly all this is, well, he's lost me.

From the comments I've seen at both Amazon and Netflix, I believe this makes me some kind of shhhnob. So be it.