Review: PATIENCE by Gilbert & Sullivan Austin, Jun 12 - 21, 2026
by David Glen Robinson
Written in 1881, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience stands out as a singular frothy, light-hearted sex comedy unexcelled by anything else in Victorian theatre or modern Hollywood rom coms. The large cast of characters was all about love, falling into it as easily as one would trip into a mud puddle. Climbing out of it is much easier, except for the mud stains.
The story of the operetta is that Reginald Bunthorne, the new lord of Castle Bunthorne, is a far cry from his medieval warrior progenitors who built the edifice. A self-proclaimed “aesthete,” he lounges in a poetic welter all his days and nights. Lovesick maidens lounge outside the castle walls hoping to catch a glimpse of their would-be lover. They swoon as he reads his verse, proving how awful it is, and he announces his love for the plain, down-to-earth milkmaid Patience. That principal, sung by the exceptional Sarah Hernandez, claims she doesn’t know what love is. Thereby hangs the tale.
Complications ensue when the 35th Dragoon Guards return from a year-long deployment. Some had previouslybeen dallying with the maidens. More importantly, a childhood boyfriend of Patience, Archibald Grosvenor, returns to Patience’s life. He's now grown rich, accomplished, and similarly cursed by an addiction to bad poetry. Emotional connections, disconnections, and reconnections gallop through the rest of the musical, all the way to the mass wedding in the final scene, à la mode in Victorian times. All are mated, save for Bunthorne. “Crushed again!” It is his punishment for bad verse.
In viewing the central character of Reginald Bunthorne, one could convince oneself that the operetta is one giant Victorian gay dogwhistle. That would be unfair to the talents of character actor and singer Aaron Matijasic, who pursued Bunthorne’s character to the very simpering acme of the bad poetry-writer’s work. Matijasic, with the connivance of director Carol Brown, created a squirmy, icky (to modern tastes) character whom no maiden even in the throes of a swoon would ever imagine pursuing romantically. Gilbert and Sullivan did the rest, putting the worst doggerel imaginable into the mouths of Bunthorne and his rival Archibald Grosvenor (Ashton McKenzie). Indeed, a critique of bad verse may be seen as a biting sub-theme of the operetta. In a bit of self-consciousness or metatheatre, Grosvenor, to gain some peace and quiet, drove off a gaggle of pestering maidens with his very worst poetry, singing (though very well) “A magnet hung in a hardware shop.” Altogether, the bizarre relationships, absurd desires, and revulsions of the entire cast make Patience a memorable monument of roaring comedy.
Gilbert and Sullivan Austin prides itself on offering the best singing talent in the region, and its efforts with Patience are no exception. Much credit for all things musical goes to Dr. Jeffrey Jones-Ragona, the music director and conductor.
The female singing leads are exceptionally well-matched. Sarah Hernandez, as Patience, has been praised above, and she was challenged in every musical way by “The Ladies”—Paige Patrick as Lady Angela, Annisha Mackenzie as Lady Saphir, Carlee Abschneider as Lady Ella, and Jessica Doklovic as Lady Jane. These opera singers could hold forth on any musical stage, especially in the sumptuous gowns designed for them by Amanda Geyer and assistant Dee Fitzgerald.
Gilbert and Sullivan Austin’s Patience runs until June 21, 2026 at the MacTheatre at McCallum Fine Arts Academy, central Austin. The operetta is superior comedy, but it is not for impressionable children younger than about twelve. After all, they may not know what love is and what it is not.
Patience
by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
Gilbert & Sullivan Austin
June 12 - June 21, 2026
June 12 - 21, 2026
Evenings at 7:30 p.m., matinees at 2 p.m.
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