Summary: Gender Breach [Trial]
Assignment 1: Chapter Summary by Prof. Steve Gerber
- Williams, Carolyn. “Gender in the Breach: Trial by Jury.” Chapter 2 (pp. 55-74) in Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2008.
G&S’s Trial by Jury (1875) premiered as a short “afterpiece” to a London production an Offenbach operetta, but its immediate popularity with audiences eclipsed the latter; their joint creation of a new genre of British comedic musical theater starts from this point. Labeled (tongue-in-cheek) as a “dramatic cantata,” the action takes place in a courtroom as a jilted bride-to-be sues her former fiancé for breach of promise of marriage, which was a not-uncommon occurrence at this time and usually resulted in an award of damages plus the restoration of the woman’s “virtue” and social reputation. Sung throughout (in contrast to their later operettas) it incorporates parodies of genres that include the cantata, the minstrel show, the melodrama of seduction, and the transformational “extravaganza.” It also constitutes a critique of gender roles and rights (or lack thereof), and lampoons the courtroom as a frankly theatrical, role-playing space. The main characters are The Learned Judge, The Defendant (Edwin), and The Plaintiff (Angelina). G&S here introduce an innovation: oppositional, gender-divided choruses (The Jurymen and The Bridesmaids) that will also be featured in many of their later operettas.
Some memorable episodes include:
- the entrance of the rakish defendant, improbably playing a guitar and blithely telling his story as if he were a carefree “entertainer,” admitting his bored abandonment of the bride—to the overt disapproval but covert sympathy (“wink-wink!”) of the Jurymen;
- the pompous entrance of the Judge to the respectful singing of a quasi-sacred anthem (as in a Handel opera or oratorio) after which he sings of how he attained his lofty position by marrying a wealthy attorney’s ageing, homely daughter—and then divorcing her (in itself a slow-motion breach of promise!);
- the entrance of the plaintiff in wedding gown, attended by a gaggle of bridesmaids similarly attired, as her testimony alternates between feigned heartache (vulnerability) and blatant flirtatiousness (sex appeal)—she’s in this for the money;
- the sudden, surprise ending where the Learned Judge himself offers to marry the Defendant, and the scene reconfigures to symbolize a wedding cake with them atop; no “damages” are awarded because the Plaintiff has not been damaged after all.
Sources.
Williams’s sources include primary materials such as various versions of the scripts and scores, stage promptbooks and design notes, vintage newspaper stories, and first-person reminiscences, as well as related secondary commentary and interpretation by scholars in such varied fields as English law, gender critique, and sentimental literature (at least three novels by Dickens touch upon such lawsuits—as threats to the gentleman!).