I recently attended a performance of an abridged version this play, so I had to read the original to see how it compared. I was very pleased to discover hardly anything had been cut! I bookmarked all my favorite humorous quotes to put into this review, but as soon as I finished reading it, the file became corrupted and I had to delete it. :-(

Here's one example (Cheviot's proposal to Belinda):

"I am a man of quick impulse and energetic action. I feel and I speak—I cannot help it. Madam, be not surprised when I tell you that I cannot resist the conviction that you are the light of my future life, the essence of every hope, the tree upon which the fruit of my heart is growing—my Past, my Present, my Future, my own To Come! Do not extinguish that light, do not disperse that essence, do not blight that tree! I am well off; I'm a bachelor; I'm thirty-two; and I love you, madam, humbly, truly, trustfully, patiently. Paralyzed with admiration, I wait anxiously, and yet hopefully, for your reply."

Text is available here: http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/gilbert/plays/engaged/index.html ( )

I became enamored of the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan only after I saw Topsy-Turvy, the Mike Leigh film that dramatizes the relationship between the two eminent Victorians. I have come to greatly admire W.S. Gilbert for his agile light verse, his sharp sense of the absurd (always delivered with a straight face) and for his ingenious plotting. Now I'm starting to explore the non-musical comedies he wrote without Arthur Sullivan, and the first I've finished is Engaged.

This play was a huge hit; Oscar Wilde liked it so much, he used it as the inspiration for The Importance of Being Earnest. The story centers around a rich but tight-fisted aristo who can't help proposing marriage to every single woman he sees. Gilbert has a great deal of fun mocking the absurdities of romanticism; most of the characters espouse airy and noble notions while constantly trying to marry for money.

The plot is devilishly complicated, with reversals aplenty. Gilbert's dialogue remains hilariously witty in the 21st century -- his trick of presenting the outlandish with a strong dose of understatement may never grow tired. Oh please won't somebody stage Engaged around here? We all love The Pirates of Penzance, but there is more to life (and to Gilbert) than the patter of a modern major general.