Pirates: Plot Summary
ACT I
It is 1889. In a rocky cove the infamous Pirates of Penzance are throwing a huge birthday party for their handsome young apprentice Pirate, Frederic, who is now twenty-one and a fully-fledged swashbuckler! Why, then, is he morose? Alas, he reveals that he is to leave them that very day and devote the rest of his life to hunting down and destroying his beloved pirates. He loathes their villainous ways and became a pirate only because his nursemaid, Ruth, apprenticed him to them by mistake when drunk. Heartbroken but full of admiration for their honorable ex-fellow the pirates depart, swearing to sail the high seas and die pirates rather than return to the grimy world of law-abiding land-lubbers.
Frederic is left with the loyal Ruth, who realised her awful mistake and made the best of a bad job by joining the pirate crew as well. She has persuaded him that she is in fact a beautiful woman, despite being a haggard forty-seven: after all, he has been at sea since he was five and for all he knows she could be the loveliest woman afloat since Helen of Troy. All looks good for Ruth until Frederic spots dozens of girls approaching, all of them young, gorgeous and frankly far more to Frederic's taste than poor old Ruth. He storms at her treachery: she flees: Frederic, realising that hanging around when the girls arrive might make him look a bit dodgy, nips behind a rock to ogle.
The women arrive in a state of huge excitement, being the daughters of a Major-General Stanley on a grand picnic at the seaside. They're just about to throw caution and clothes to the wind and hop into the English Channel for a dip when Frederic, goody-goody that he is, leaps out to stop them exposing themselves to him. Their horror at being observed is tempered by the women's realisation that this complete innocent is also a very very cute young man, and a dashing ex-pirate to boot. When he pleads with them for one of them to be his wife, it is all they can do to resist his charms, but they all do – he may be cute, but hey, this is a material world, and Freddy the ex-criminal won't be providing any little prezzies from Tiffany's any time soon.
All resist, that is, except one – much-bullied bookish little Mabel, who spots her chance and goes for it despite them all, taking delight in scolding her sisters for their lack of charity and offering herself to the delighted Frederic. Frederic is smitten. The bitchy daughters throw a few snide remarks and then pretend to ignore the shy new couple billing and cooing, while at the same time frantically craning necks and straining ears to as not to miss a second of the juicy lurve action.
The love-fest is interrupted, however, by the sudden return of the Pirates, who quite naturally are delighted at the prospect of dozens of gorgeous young women, and attempt to seize the maidens and carry them off (to the nearest clergyman, of course). Battle ensues, swords and parasols crossing, until from the midst of the affray suddenly pops the daughters' papa, Major-General Stanley.
The Major-General proves his prowess by treating the pirates to a lengthy description of his talents in song and then coming up with the cunning scheme of pleading that he is an orphan. The Pirates are famous for freeing orphans they capture – being all orphans themselves – and gritting their teeth at the now triumphant and jeering daughters, they do exactly that. The daughters, Major-General and the new couple make their escape.
ACT II
Awakened in the middle of the night by loud sobbing, the pyjama'd daughters find their father racked with guilt at his lies in the ruined crypt in the family grounds. Frederic comforts him with the news that he has assembled the local Police, who march in demonstrate their heroic manliness. Unfortunately, the daughters notice that they are in fact terrified and taunt the poor coppers with descriptions of their mutilated corpses, so they flee again with everyone in hot pursuit.
Frederic is about to follow, when from the shadows sidle his old master, the glorious Pirate King, and his old flame Ruth, now saucily dressed up and armed to the teeth as a full-fledged Pirate – well, you can mope all you like after an old boyfriend, but he'll never come back. Unless, of course, you've got his original contract of apprenticeship. It turns out that Frederic dear was apprenticed until his twenty-first birthday, not his twenty-first year, and since the young whippersnapper was born on leap day he's now only five, and a Pirate once more.
Frederic, noble as ever, solemnly agrees, and then rats on the Major-General's fibs. The enraged Pirate King and Ruth leave to round up the Pirates and bring them back to slaughter everyone. Frederic tallies only long enough to see Mabel for one last time, where they promise undying love until he's old enough to return, some sixty years in the future. And with a final smooch, he is gone.
Mabel, however, is not the sort to sit about and pine until 1940. She summons the craven Policemen again and orders them to stop whinging and go after the Pirates. They delay their grisly fate by lamenting that a Policeman's lot is not a happy one, but their philosophical musings are terminated by the arrival of the furious Pirate band, out for blood. The Policemen hide as the Pirates storm in, threatening bloody retribution. The Pirates then hide in turn as Major-General Stanley appears, awakened by the racket, and befuddled by sleep fails to notice the heavily armed men hidden all around. He blames the passing breeze, and wanders about in half-awake confusion, pursued silently by the villainous Pirates, who in turn are followed by the terrified Police. The appearance of the daughters, alarmed by the disappearance of their father, ends this merry-go-round as the Pirates spy both the target of their attack and his luscious daughters together and pounce. The Police finally leap from hiding only to be completely trounced by the bold swashbucklers. Mabel appeals to Frederic to save her father and sisters, but Frederic, wracked by guilt, can only do his duty as a Pirate and help to slaughter his prospective father-in-law.
Just as the Major-General is about to be beheaded by the triumphant Pirates, the Police try one last patriotic tactic: they appeal to the Pirates to yield in the name of Queen Victoria, their beloved monarch. The Pirates being pround Britons, this succeeds immediately, and they throw down their arms. All is now lost for Frederic and the Pirates, as they face the suddenly-victorious Police and imprisonment or worse.
One last surprise awaits, however. Ruth reveals that the Pirates are not in fact common cut-throats, but noble Peers, fully-fledged members of the House of Lords. As the highest legislators in the land, and dashing, wealthy, and young to a man, they obviously don't deserve to be imprisoned for a little boyish fun like piracy on the high seas. The Police, respectful of rightful rank as ever, release the Pirates and the daughters smartly reverse their former low opinions of the suddenly-rich ex-buccaneers and grab a Lord each. The Pirate King pairs up with Ruth, the Major-General gets his whole brood married off to the nobility in one go, and Frederic and Mabel fall into each other's arms, united at last.
Plot summary provided by Alasdair King
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