In March 1994, I was in the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta Patience.
You can find a list of the Society’s past shows here; I was also in the same show the next time they produced it, in April 2007. Also, you can find the libretto of the show here.
In the March 1994 production, I played the character of the Major, which is perhaps the smallest part among the male principals. But hey, at least it was a principal.
Who was in the show with me? In the male chorus, playing one of the Heavy Dragoons, was Alan Gura, who represented Heller in D.C. v. Heller, and who’s counsel of record in McDonald v. Chicago, as you can see from the front page of the brief.
Who else was in the show with me? Why, playing the character of the Duke was none other than David Sigale, also McDonald’s lawyer listed on the front page of the brief.
Who else was in the show with me? This isn’t strictly speaking related to the McDonald case, but the character I married in the show, one “Angela,” was played by Alan Gura’s law partner, Laura Possessky.
Have Gilbert & Sullivan otherwise influenced the McDonald case? Well, p. 7 of the brief (p. 25 of the PDF) says that “The Privileges or Immunities Clause was all but erased from the Constitution in The SlaughterHouse Cases.” And, on the next page, it says that “SlaughterHouse’s illegitimacy has long been all-but-universally understood.”
All but!
Surely, this is an echo of the sextet in Patience (see p. 19 of the libretto, i.e. p. 22 of the PDF, here), which I sang together with one of McDonald’s lawyers and the other lawyer’s law partner: “The pain that is all but a pleasure will change / For the pleasure that’s all but pain, / And never, oh never, this heart will range / From that old, old love again!” And MAIDENS embrace OFFICERS. Awww!
Or (see p. 28 of the libretto / p. 31 of the PDF), says Angela, commenting on the Major and the Duke: “Not supremely, perhaps, but oh, so all-but! (To SAPHIR.) Oh, Saphir, are they not quite too all-but?”
Perhaps Gilbert and Sullivan’s influence on the law now extends further than Iolanthe and Trial by Jury!
byomtov says:
Perhaps Gilbert and Sullivan’s influence on the law now extends further than Iolanthe and Trial by Jury!
Are G&S helping to make the punishment fit the crime, do you think?
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November 17, 2009, 9:33 pmSasha Volokh says:
To say nothing of the contract interpretation issue in Pirates.
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November 17, 2009, 9:35 pmStrange McDonald Connections | Snowflakes in Hell says:
[...] Given this, perhaps we should invite some of our gun rights lawyers to put on a production of the Pirates of Penzance at the next NRA Annual Meeting. That’s an event I’d definitely go to, especially if we put Dave Hardy in the Major General’s role. [...]
roguestage says:
Few posts on this site have made me as happy as this one.
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November 17, 2009, 10:31 pmKuzbad says:
And one of my favorite lines, from Iolanthe:
“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” –Lord Chancellor
This quote was in the preface to Colin Imber’s text on Ebu es-Suud, the 16th century Ottoman jurist and Shaykh al-Islam who along with Sultan Suleyman Kanuni (the Lawgiver, also the Magnificent) reconciled Islamic and Ottoman secular law. Very fitting.
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November 17, 2009, 10:34 pmKuzbad says:
Also worth noting that Gilbert was trained as a barrister. Many of the operettas contain legal themes.
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November 17, 2009, 10:38 pmHMAjor says:
It is worth noting that the stripes on Chief Justice Rehnquit’s robes were inspired by a costume in a production of Iolanthe.
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November 17, 2009, 10:55 pmEstaLaw says:
I have no connection to the McDonald case, but I was in the audience of the March 1994 show!
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November 18, 2009, 9:50 amEcon_Scott says:
There is a G_d,
a G_d of eternal Love AND Justice,
He has a sense of Humor.
That pink elephants in the room will be acknowledged
And liars exposed
And “I would not say such things if I were you ! ” (the Princess Bride) yet those things ARE said and an evil prince (In Chicago) laughed at
And a boy (born in Israel no less [Gura]) stands forth from the crowd and Shouts
“The Emporer has no Clothes”
And the whole crowd points and laughs
The Book of Esther Chapter 8 : 1–17
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November 18, 2009, 11:01 amAlan Gunn says:
Don’t forget The Mikado, which features the doctrine of equitable conversion by contract, in the setting of explaining Nanki-Poo’s being alive after his supposed execution:
Or, as they say in the contract cases, “Equity regards as done that which ought to be done.”
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November 18, 2009, 12:20 pmHerb Martin says:
In the television show “Angel” about a ‘vampire with a soul’ and other things supernatural, one of the characters Gunn is magically given a complete understanding of the law and other things legal.
Part of the “lawyer package” is a complete knowledge of “Gilbert and Sullivan” — presumably because it improves the ability to deliver arguments verbally, i.e., timing, meter, etc.
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November 21, 2009, 12:49 pm