You’d never think that an old Elvis Presley song would be so precise in capturing the essence of a comic opera about a bunch of tender-hearted pirates. But the song "Are You Lonesome Tonight" is an almost perfect description of the Skylight Music Theatre’s final show of the season, "The Pirates of Penzance."

"Act one was when we met. I loved you at first glance.
You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue.
Then came act two. You seem to change and you acted strange.
And Why, I’ll never know."

That was the production that opened Friday night – a rollicking and laugh-filled first act that ran out of gas in the mercifully much shorter second act. Things changed and seemed way too strange. 

This Gilbert and Sullivan chestnut of a comic opera is a funny story, and director Shawna Lucey wrung a tsunami of laughs out of the first act. She showed incredible comedic innovation and sensibility.

The treats ran the gamut, from a chorus line of pirates and cops to a stunning cougar chasing our young hero to a band of sisters who weren’t taking a backseat to a man, any man. And we got Drew Brehl as Major-General Stanley and what may well be the funniest musical number on any stage in Milwaukee this season, "I am the very model of a modern Major-General."

The glorious corners of the Cabot Theater rang with laughter that threatened to drown out what was taking place on the stage. When intermission came, you could hear people still chuckling, and seats were filled in anticipation well before the curtain rose for the second act.

From almost the first moments, the air went out of this balloon. It was as if Lucey suddenly decided to take this whole thing seriously. Boy and girl in love and swooning right before our very eyes.

I didn’t want swoon. I wanted more laughter.

What came instead were a chorus line of pirates and cops, a stunning cougar chasing our  young hero, a band of sisters who didn’t take a backseat to a man, any man. And we got more of Major-General Stanley. If that sounds like the first act, it should.

As I sat through this, I got that old deja vu feeling again. The jokes that were hilarious in the first act weren’t nearly as funny the second time around. It was as if Lucey had suddenly run out of tricks and decided to just do the same thing again and hope that we laughed at it just as hard as we did the first time we saw/heard the joke. It was like telling a joke and thinking that people laughed so hard at it they might like to hear it again, and again. It was like the second act got mailed in. 

What made this all so disappointing is that it kind of spoiled some memorable performances and moments in the first act.

Milwaukee favorite Diane Lane was absolutely scandalous as the cougar who has fallen hard for the much younger Frederic. She is an actor of immense depth and sings, dances and acts with the best of them.

Andrew Varela had the role of The Pirate King and showed why he is one of the most sought after actors working today. He has a marvelous voice and the kind of visage that paints pictures in your mind.

The moments were memorable, including one in particular between Benjamin Robinson, who played Frederic and Samantha Sostarich, who played Kate, one of the sisters. Robinson is on the lookout for a woman and slides backward into the unsuspecting and unwilling arms of Sostarich. He leans back and her angst at being trapped was a powerful moment of high comedy.

Momentum is a difficult thing to maintain in comedy, and once it’s lost, getting it back takes a tremendous effort. It also takes new and fresh comedy to keep the audience engaged and laughing.

The laughter from the nearly full house during the second act was palpably diminished from the first act. The actors and singers, all hard workers and talented people, tried their very best.

But they had been given a full quiver in the first act but only a broken bow and no arrows at all in the second.

"The Pirates of Penzance" runs through June 12 and information on showtimes and tickets is available here.