UPDATE: Opens tonight, July 15

West Seattle actress Hollis Heron is set to portray “Mad Margaret” in the lesser-known but highly melodramatic Gilbert & Sullivan opera Ruddigore at the Bagley Wright Theatre, Seattle Center opening July 15. The Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society presents the show.

“Gilbert and Sullivan is mostly farce,” said Heron, who has performed with the Society on and off since 2000. “Actually I didn't know about the genre at all until I auditioned for The Yeomen of the Guard. I just auditioned for it on a lark. To be honest it's my favorite show. Musically the most operatic of all of the stories they’ve written and the story is dark which is very different.

“I really like Ruddigore. It's an interesting, whole idea. If you're familiar with the Pirates of Penzance, (H.M.S.) Pinafore, and Mikado that are all the palatable mass appeal shows, those three shows are just silly. The circumstances, the characters are really contrived. This show does have some flavor of contriving. What I like about the character I'm playing, Mad Margaret, her circumstances are pretty real, and I can play her real instead of playing her the farce.”

In the play, Mad Margaret is in love with Sir Despard Mergatroyd, the younger brother who inherits a family curse when his older brother runs off. Because he is cursed, he must commit a serious crime every day or he will die a painful death. Things do get straightened out eventually via Gilbert & Sullivan’s plot twists and turns.

Seattle G&S’s well-known cast member Dave Ross of KIRO FM portrays Sir Despard Mergatroyd. “I think we've got a great show,” he told the West Seattle Herald. It's full of ghosts, magic, special effect, and scary villains. I am as evil I think as I've ever been, on or off the radio.”

“Ruddigore is set in the 1800's when this show was written,” said Heron. “That was pretty traumatic for a woman to suddenly be a spinster and I suspect she was really in love with him, and shunned and broken-hearted. There is no easy way to shrug that off in the 1800's, when women’s biggest value was whether they could marry and have children.”

Her last role was the witch with the Auburn Community Players presentation of “Into the Woods”.

Last year she appeared with Highland Park resident Scott Bessho in the French comedic operetta “La Perichole” written by composer Jacques Offenbach in 1868, a Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society production, directed by Fauntleroy resident David Koch. The the West Seattle Herald just featured Koch and his new West Seattle based musical theater kids camp, Sing Out Seattle! sponsored by Westside School.

The show runs July 15 –17, 22-24, 29 & 30.
For ticket information, visit: www.pattersong.org