Gilbert and Sullivan’s Thespis or the Gods Grown Old is an early collaboration and not one of their best. It’s a topsy-turvy derivative version of Jacques Offenbach’s operetta Orpheus in the Underworld or Orphée aux envers. Instead of comedy in the Underworld, there is comedy on Mount Olympus as a troupe of silly actors walk to the top of Olympus for a sham-wedding feast picnic and Sparkeion and Nicemis.
Not realizing they are climbing Mount Olympus, the actors are surprised to meet the Gods. Instead of dispersing the troupe, the gods, now grown old and weary, decide to change places with the actors. Of course, the actors screw up, and Jupiter restores. 
Preparation is helter-skelter, and things are lost or forgotten. There is no lobster for the lobster salad, or claret for the claret cup, etc.
Thespis: The best thing about a picnic is that everybody contributes what he pleases, and nobody knows what anybody else has brought til the last moment. Now, unpack everybody, and let’s see what there is for everybody.
Nicemis: I have brought you—a bottle of soda water—for the claret- cup.
Daphne: I have brought you—lettuce for the lobster salad.
Sparkeion. A piece of ice—for the claret-cup.
Prettia: A bottle of vinegar—for the lobster salad.
Cymon: A bunch of burrage for the claret-cup.
Tipseion: A hard-boiled egg—for the lobster salad.
Stupidas: One lump of sugar for the claret-cup.
Preposteros: He has brought one lump of sugar for the claret-cup? Ha. Ha. Ha. [Laughing melodramatically]
Stupidas: Well, Preposteros, what have you brought?
Preposteros. I brought two lumps of the best salt for the lobster salad.
Thespis: Oh—is that all?
Preposteros: All. Ha. Ha. He asks if it is all. [Stupidas consoles him]
Sloughing off their forgetfulness, the troupe accepts the inevitable and laugh it off, especially the sham bride and groom:
Sparkeion: We are so happy that we don’t miss the lobster or the claret. What are lobster and claret compared with the society of those we love? [embracing Daphne]
Daphne: Why, Nicemis, love, you are eating nothing. Aren’t you happy, dear?
Nicemis: [spitefully] You are quite welcome to my share of everything. I intend to console myself with the society of my manager. [takes Thespis’ arm affectionately]
*Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery (1845) recipe for Lobster Salad is posted separately.
Featured Image: D.H. Friston. The actors’ picnic ends when they meet the Gods, Grown old. Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old. The London Illustrated News (January 6, 1872)
See The full title is Thespis or The Gods Grown Old; An Entirely Original Grotesque Opera, in Two Acts. It was produced at London’s Gaiety Theatre in December 1871. William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. “Thespis or the Gods Grown Old [1871].” In Complete Annotated Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan edited by Ian Bradley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005; The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive; Carolyn William. Gilbert & Sullivan and Gender, Genre, Parody. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012; Geoffrey Shovelton. Thespis. In Harry Benford. The Gilbert and Sullivan Lexicon, which is Gilded the Philosophic Pill [1978]. Illustrated by Geoffrey Shovelton. 3rd edition. New York: Queensbury Press, 1999