NOW PLAYING- Savanah Pletcher, left, Sarah Siskin and Molly Siskin play lovesick maidens in "Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride" at the Theatre on the Hill, Hillcrest Center for the Arts, Thousand Oaks. Showtimes are 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays through Oct. 12. Tickets are $20, $15 for seniors, students and children, but vary for Thursday night performances. The show is presented by the Ventura County Gilbert and Sullivan Repertoire Company. Call (805) 381-1246 for tickets. The comic opera "Patience," now being staged by the Ventura County Gilbert and Sullivan Repertoire Company, is a whimsical satire on the aesthetic movement in England during the Victorian era of the 1870s and 1880s.

Premiered in 1881, "Patience" came during a time when aestheticism was all the rage in England. The movement was characterized by trendy, decadent fashions such as frilly clothing (Jerry Seinfeld's famed "puffy shirt" would fit well here), reading of poetry in public and prominent use of nature, such as flowers, as accoutrements. In aestheticism, beauty and sensuality trump utilitarianism.

In this world we meet Reginald Bunthorne (the estimable John Pillsbury), a snooty "literary man who despises female clay." Prissy to the nth degree, Bunthorne walks around jotting down poems with a peacock feather quill, surrounded by a bevy of swooning maidens seeking his attentions. He is mystified and downright bothered by all their fawning while the Dragoon guards, a regimented, stuffy lot, are bored with this nonsense.

The contrasting feelings of the maidens and the Dragoons toward Bunthorne are brilliantly expressed in "In a Doleful Train," in which Gilbert and Sullivan use musical counterpoint to compare the Dragoons' complaining to the maids' pining.

Enter Patience (Mona King), a wideeyed, emptyheaded Irish milkmaid who Bunthorne fancies. Patience has not only never loved, but wants no part of it, since it will no doubt make her as miserable as the maidens.

After being spurned by Bunthorne, the maidens turn their attention to another aesthetic, the narcissistic Archibald Grosvenor, who is as sick of being loved as the maidens are lovesick. Grosvenor believes he is God's gift to women and spends most of his time flamboyantly posturing, posing and gazing admiringly at his own reflection.

The rest of the opera deals with the characters' fickle attitudes. The maidens flit back and forth between idolizing the two aesthetics and the Dragoon guards. The guards decide that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and try to convert to aestheticism themselves, with disastrous and hilarious results. Grosvenor ends up with Patience after deciding to abandon aestheticism, becoming a priggish, bow-tied and bowler-hatted English gentleman.

Although the entire cast is marvelous, Gary Saxer's preening Grosvenor runs away with every scene he is in. His highlight is the patter duet, "When I Go Out of Door," sung with Pillsbury as Bunthorne.

"Patience" features a variety of other entertaining patter songs, although not as tongue-twisting or memorable as in other G&S shows such as "H.M.S. Pinafore" or "The Pirates of Penzance." Mona King is terrific as the confused Patience, and Ghislaine Sopher-Phillips does a wonderful turn as the plain Lady Jane. Also of note is the company's regular Steve Perren as Colonel Calverly, officer of the Dragoon guards, who flawlessly delivers the most difficult patter song of the opera, "The Soldiers of Our Queen."

Although it was written more than a century ago, "Patience" foretells popular culture icons such as Elvis Presley and the Beatles, two contemporary musical acts who became fashion trendsetters just like the aesthetics of the 19th century.

Despite its pervasiveness in England, aestheticism was alien to most Americans in the 1880s, so much so that the flamboyant Irish playwright and poet Oscar Wilde was engaged by Gilbert and Sullivan to enlighten Americans on the movement in support of "Patience," complete with green carnations and knee breeches. "Patience" also holds the honor of being the first theatrical production to be lit entirely by electric lights, when it was performed at the 1,292seat Savoy Theatre in October 1881.

Although "Patience" was a huge hit when it made its debut, it is rarely performed in the U.S. today. Credit executive producer John Pillsbury and his wife, director Rebecca Pillsbury (who doubles as one of the maidens), for continuing to present stellar productions of Gilbert and Sullivan's fabulous oeuvre of light operas to the Conejo Valley.

"Patience" plays at the Theatre on the Hill through Oct. 12. For information, visit www.vcgsrc.org.