I won&rsquo;t be the first theatergoer to describe Gilbert and Sullivan&rsquo;s &ldquo;H.M.S. Pinafore&rdquo; as sheer foolishness, but it sums up the 1878 operetta rather well. </p><p>Set entirely on the quarter deck of a British naval vessel that has been given the decidedly unmanly name of &ldquo;Pinafore,&rdquo; the story is a farcical essay on the British obsession with class distinctions. </p><p>Director/choreographer William Theisen has ratcheted up the absurd humor of the piece in his crowd-pleasing production for the Lyric Opera, eliciting broad comic performances from a very strong cast, including Robert Gibby Brand, Daniel Belcher and, in their lyric debuts, Deborah Fields and Ava Pine. Theisen&rsquo;s choreography often reflects an inspired, loony sensibility. </p><p>Performing on a rented set in rented costumes, the company proves that this wacky material doesn&rsquo;t need particularly fancy production values. W.S. Gilbert&rsquo;s brilliant wordplay, combined with these performances, yields a production that is difficult to resist. </p><p>The plot has to do with the impossibility of love in a rigid class system. Belcher plays Capt. Corcoran, whose daughter Josephine (Pine) is reluctantly betrothed to Sir Joseph Porter (Brand), who has risen to the rank of First Lord of the Admiralty despite having no seafaring experience. </p><p>Josephine, though, is in love with Ralph Rackstraw (Jon-Michael Ball), a common seaman with an inordinately sophisticated vocabulary. </p><p>On a parallel track, Little Buttercup (Fields) has fallen in love with Capt. Corcoran. Everything works out when Little Buttercup reveals that she was once a &ldquo;baby farmer&rdquo; who inadvertently switched Corcoran and Rackstraw as infants. The revelation immediately elevates Rackstraw to the captaincy while Corcoran is reduced to seaman, and true love can blossom free of class divisions. </p><p>There seems to be unwritten rule that you can&rsquo;t stage a Gilbert and Sullivan show in Kansas City without Bob Brand &mdash; and that&rsquo;s a good thing. His embodiment of Sir Joseph Porter is an inspired piece of work. Fastidious, supercilious and fatuous, Porter is one of the great comic roles in musical theater and it fits Brand like a glove. </p><p>Equally vivid are Fields, Pine and Belcher, while Matthew Trevino makes a good-faith effort to steal the show as Dick Deadye, the grotesque but honest one-eyed sailor who is barely tolerated by his shipmates. </p><p>The Kansas City Symphony musicians, under conductor Mark Ferrell, were in fine form on opening night. Michael Baumgarten&rsquo;s lighting design creates an impressive degree of depth and dynamism on a fairly static set, and the clothes from a Canadian costume supplier are clever and often sumptuous. </p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> <strong><span class="infobox-head">THE SHOW </span></strong><br /> &ldquo;H.M.S. Pinafore&rdquo; will be performed Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at the Lyric Theatre. Call 816-471-7344 or go to <a href="http://www.kcopera.org">www.kcopera.org</a>. </p><p></div>