Theatre / Iolanthe

Iolanthe is the seventh operetta co-written by Gilbert and Sullivan, with their usual blend of "topsy-turvy" and political satire, in this case directed primarily at the House of Lords.

The title character is a fairy who was banished by the Queen of the Fairies for marrying a mortal; when the Queen decides she has suffered enough and recalls her, Iolanthe reveals that her marriage produced a Half-Human Hybrid son, Strephon, who is an Arcadian shepherd and in love with shepherdess Phyllis, a ward of the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor forbids their marriage, ostensibly because he thinks Strephon is not a suitable match for Phyllis, particularly compared to the many members of the House of Lords who also seek her hand, but privately because he wants to marry her himself.

When Phyllis sees a broken Strephon being consoled by his much younger-looking mother, she gets the wrong idea and breaks off their engagement in favour of two of the Peers, the Earl of Mountararat and Earl Tolloller; Strephon tries calling the fairies to his aid, but when the Lord Chancellor and the Peers insult them, they respond by installing Strephon in the House of Commons to make life very difficult for the Peers. Strephon and Phyllis reconcile just as the Lord Chancellor decides that he himself should marry her. However, Iolanthe has a surprising revelation that turns the romantic entanglements on their heads...

Not to be confused with Iolanta, a Tchaikovsky opera.

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This work provides examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion: Adapted from "The Fairy Curate", one of Gilbert's poems, stripped of its religious overtones, and with a new second act.
• All There in the Script: Other than Iolanthe and the Queen, there are three fairies with speaking parts. The script refers to them as Celia, Leila, and Fleta, but these names appear nowhere in the dialogue.
• Arcadia: The "Arcadian Shepherds" trope is parodied mercilessly with Phyllis and Strephon.
• Artistic License – History: Mountararat recounts the Peers' contribution to one of Britain's greatest military triumphs:
  When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
  As every child can tell,
  The House of Peers, throughout the war,
  Did nothing in particular,
  And did it very well.

In fact, the Master-General of the Ordnance, the head of the Admiralty, the secretary for War, the Prime Minister, and, of course, Wellington himself, were all members of the House of Peers. It's still one of Gilbert's best lines, and the facts be... d——d!

• Bilingual Rhyme: Sir William Gilbert enjoys himself far too much with this trope:
  FAIRIES: Your lordly style
  We'll quickly quench
  With base canaille!
  LORDS: That word is French!

  FAIRIES: Distinction ebbs
  Before a herd
  Of vulgar plebs!
  LORDS: A Latin word!

  FAIRIES: 'Twill fill with joy
  And madness stark
  The hoi polloi!
  LORDS: A Greek remark!
• Blue Blood: All the peers. Lord Tolloller even gets a song about it, "Spurn Not the Nobly Born."
• Blessed with Suck: Strephon who is half a fairy. He's a fairy down to the waist, but his legs are mortal, and will eventually grow old and die.
• British Royal Guards: Private Willis is one of of the First Grenadier Guards, and he sings a solo while no one's looking.
  • Played quite literally on the original production's first night, when the Entry of the Peers was accompanied on stage by part of the actual regimental Band of the Grenadier Guards. The 1960 D'Oyly Carte recording also features the Band of the Grenadier Guards.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Most of the chorus of peers and the chorus of fairies.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: The Fairy Queen responds to the Peers' intransigence by threatening to make Strephon a member of Parliament, where he will institute sweeping policy changes such as rearranging Parliament's schedule so the House of Lords will be in session during grouse hunting season. Note, however, that the Fairy Queen's final threatened policy change—opening the Peerage's traditionally birthright titles to competitive examination—completely averts this trope because the threat is genuinely fearsome, raising as it does the prospect that most of the Peers will eventually be stripped of their titles.^note In most productions, the Lord Chancellor faints at this point, and with good reason.
• Eating the Eye Candy: The Fairy Queen takes a bit of a shine to Private Willis.
• Everyone Must Be Paired: Unlike some of Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas, it's not just a last-minute thing. We see the growing relationship between the male and female choruses throughout most of an entire act, and it's part of the main plot. Further, every main cast pairing has at least one entire song setting them up.
• The Fair Folk: The fairies, of course.
• Fairy Sexy: All the fairies look like winsome teenage girls of 17 years or thereabouts.
• Forgot I Could Change the Rules:
  • The Chancellor eventually realizes that he can give himself permission to marry Phyllis.
  • A scene or two later, the Queen of the Fairies realizes that she can avoid having to execute Iolanthe by changing the law that requires it.
  • The Lord Chancellor's old job as "Equity Draughtsman"^note Draftsman in modern American English; pronounced identically is parodied: in equity, a document may have to be redrafted to reflect as much of the authors' intent as possible, while making it consistent with law, justice, or public policy. The Lord Chancellor proposes a one-word alteration which completely reverses the meaning and intent of the relevant fairy law.
• Friend Versus Lover: Tolloller and Mountararat are torn between their friendship and their unrequited love triangle with Phyllis. This nearly leads to a duel between the two friends, until Phyllis reminds them of what's important and what's not.
• Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: In places.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The half-fairy Strephon, the romantic lead. His top half is an immortal fairy, but below the waist he's a human as mortal as any other.
• Have a Gay Old Time:
  • "Tripping hither, tripping thither!"
  • "A fairy Member! That would be delightful!" ^note  Member of Parliament, that is.
• Hope Spot: When Strephon learns that his father—Iolanthe's husband—is of noble birth, Phyllis suggests that they need but tell him and all objections to her marrying Strephon will be at once removed. Iolanthe must then explain why Phyllis' simple and logical proposal is unworkable: Strephon's father believes Iolanthe to have died childless, and she is bound under penalty of death not to undeceive him.
• Hurricane of Aphorisms: The song, "If You Go In, You're Sure To Win" is little more than a collection of old proverbs.
  Nothing venture, nothing win
  Blood is thick, but water's thin
  In for a penny, in for a pound
  It's Love that makes the world go round!
• "I Am" Song: "The Law is the True Embodiment", marking the Lord Chancellor's first appearance.
  The law is the true embodiment
  Of everything that's excellent.
  It has no kind of fault or flaw,
  And I, my Lords, embody the Law.
• Leitmotif: Surprisingly, the Lord Chancellor has one, a short theme that plays every time he enters.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Strephon learns that one of the major antagonists is his father.
• Mood Whiplash: The second half of Act 2. The Lord Chancellor sings a gloomy recitative which leads into the surreal Nightmare Song. He, Tolloller and Mountararat then have a funny dialogue and an upbeat song. Then Strephon enters "in low spirits" (the whiplash is even more pronounced if his darkly satirical Cut Song is included) but then reconciles with Phyllis and they sing a happy duet. They ask Iolanthe to persuade the Lord Chancellor to let them marry.
  • The whiplashings culminates in a completely non-comic scene absolutely Played for Drama: Iolanthe reveals to Strephon and Phyllis that the Lord Chancellor is the mortal she was banished for marrying years ago, but now must never see again on pain of death. The Lord Chancellor enters, determined to marry Phyllis. Iolanthe pleads with him incognito in a beautiful, heart-rending song, reminding him of his own dead wife from his youth. After momentary indecision, he steels himself and informs this unknown lady that Phyllis is his own promised bride. Iolanthe reveals herself, prepared to sacrifice her life for his son's happiness. The Fairy Queen enters to execute her. Then the whole thing is resolved with an absurd, typically Gilbertian plot twist.
• Murphy's Bed: The first verse of the Lord Chancellor's "nightmare" song is devoted to this trope, and how the anxiety of hopeless love can make every lump in the pillow and every prickle in the blankets seem much worse than it is.
• Nightmare Sequence: The Lord Chancellor describes his nightmare in a memorable Patter Song. Played for Laughs, naturally.
• Not What It Looks Like: Strephon's mother looks about 17. His fiancée catches the two of them embracing and jumps to a reasonable if erroneous conclusion that drives the Act II plot. Later on, Strephon reminds Phyllis that all his aunts look just as young.
• Older Than They Look: All the fairies are Really 700 Years Old, but appear to be attractive teenage girls.
• One-Word Title: Secondary Character Title
• Opening Chorus: "Tripping Hither, Tripping Thither."
• Patter Song: The Nightmare Song, a.k.a. "When You're Lying Awake" is easily the toughest such song in the whole canon, not least because it's the longest. ^note  Although this depends in no small part on what one finds hard; while the Nightmare Song is longer, it has an internal flow, whereas most of "My Name Is John Wellington Wells" is just a list, with nothing connecting one line to the next.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The House of Lords, and proudly so. As Mountararat sings in "When Britain Really Ruled the Waves", British Peers have distinguished themselves throughout their nation's most glorious historical victories by... not so much as lifting a finger.
  When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
  As every child can tell,
  The House of Peers, throughout the war,
  Did nothing in particular,
  And did it very well.
• Power of Friendship: Parodied with Lords Tolloller and Mountararat, with heavy doses of both Jerkass and being an idiot, not to mention so much Have a Gay Old Time, it verges on Ho Yay.
  Tolloller: We were boys together! Or at least, I was.
• Purple Prose: Satirized in this particularly purpurescent speech:
  Strephon: My Lord, I know no Courts of Chancery; I go by Nature's Acts of Parliament. The bees — the breeze — the seas — the rooks — the brooks — the gales — the vales — the fountains and the mountains cry, "You love this maiden — take her, we command you!" 'Tis writ in heaven by the bright barbed dart that leaps forth into lurid light from each grim thundercloud. The very rain pours forth her sad and sodden sympathy! When chorused Nature bids me take my love, shall I reply, "Nay, but a certain Chancellor forbids it"? Sir, you are England's Lord High Chancellor, but are you Chancellor of birds and trees, King of the winds and Prince of thunderclouds?
  Lord Chancellor: No. It's a nice point. I don't know that I ever met it before. But my difficulty is that at present there's no evidence before the Court that chorused Nature has interested herself in the matter...
• Really 700 Years Old: The fairies.
• Relative Error: Justified quite well, as Strephon's mother (as an immortal fairy) is Really 700 Years Old but looks to be about seventeen. Phyllis is understandably skeptical when she sees them embracing, and promptly breaks off her engagement. Eventually resolved in the hilarious lines:
  Phyllis: Whenever I see you kissing a very young lady, I shall know it's an elderly relative.
  Strephon: You will? Then, Phyllis, I think we shall be very happy!
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: The chorus of Peers mimics the sound of brass and percussion: "Tantantara, Tzing, Boom!"
• Secondary Character Title
• Shout-Out: An almost literal one occurred on the first night of Iolanthe; when Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, head of London's fire department and a big fan who was an inveterate first-nighter, attended the première, the Fairy Queen (Alice Barnett) stretched out her arms to him as she sang, "Oh, Captain Shaw, type of true love kept under!" (Four years later, ironically, Shaw was involved in a messy adultery case.)
• Supernaturally Young Parent: Fairies are unaging, and Stephron has a hard time explaining to his beloved that these nubile women he is seen embracing are, in fact, his mother and his aunts, all of whom look younger than him.
  I wouldn't say a word that could be reckoned as injurious
  But to find a mother younger than her son is very curious
• Totally Trusting Love Interest: Phyllis finally reaches the understanding that whenever she sees Strephon embracing a very young woman, it's actually an elderly relative. Strephon seems perhaps a little too happy about this, however.
• Tenor Boy: Averted; Gilbert and Sullivan gave the young lover character of Strephon to their bass, Richard Temple (though the part can also be sung by baritones), while their tenor took the purely comic part of Lord Tolloller.
• Tsundere: In "In Vain to Us You Plead", the fairies are clearly of two minds concerning the Peers:
  It's true we sigh,
  But don't suppose
  A tearful eye
  Forgiveness shows.
  We're very cross indeed... Don't go!
• Unwanted Harem: The Lord Chancellor, the Earls of Mountararat and Tolloller, and the entire Chorus of Peers are all in love with Phyllis, who wants none of them.
• Wife Husbandry: The Lord Chancellor is as smitten with his ward, Phyllis, as all the other Lords, and decides to marry her himself after Lords Mountararat and Tolloller convince him that it would not be improper to do so.

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