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  "FOR TRICKS THAT ARE DARK AND WAYS THAT ARE STRANGE,
                                                    GILBERT AND SULLIVAN ARE PECULIAR"
                                                                (Apologies to Bret Harte)
                                                               A Review of The Mikado by
                                                                       James L. Seay
 
 
 "I cannot give you a good reason for our...piece being laid in Japan," said W.A. Gilbert.  "It...affords scope for picturesque treatment, scenery, and costume, and I think the idea of a chief magistrate, who is...judge and actual executioner in one, and yet would not hurt a worm may perhaps please the public."
 
 Indeed, when the operetta, The Mikado was produced by Richard D'Oyly Carte at London's Savoy Theatre in May of 1885, the English public was fascinated with anything remotely Japanese.  Japan had been opened to the West within the last 30 years.  It was exotic and mysterious to all Europeans.  They had been familiar with China, of course, since Marco Polo, and tended to get the two confused.  W.A. Gilbert actually drew cartoons, supposedly illustrating The Mikado in which the characters all wore pig-tails.  The Japanese never wore their hair in ques -- this was strictly Chinese.  But it all made little difference, as The Mikado is no more a Japanese play than Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a Greek one.
 
 The Messrs Gilbert & Sullivan did make some actual concessions to the Japanese (the song, "Miya Sama" is a version of an acetal Japanese song which was later included by Puccini in Madama Butterfly) but for the most part, The Mikado is an English play about Victorian English society.  Even the names of the characters come not from Japan, but from English baby-talk (Nanki-Pu meaning "handkerchief" in the baby-talk of late 19th Century England).
 
 The Celebration Company at the Station Theatre is again to be congratulated for having the guts to present something as dated as Gilbert & Sullivan following such a modern piece as the recently closed SubUrbia.  It is this sort of scheduling that has tended to make their seasons interesting year after year for thirty-five years.  The production of The Mikado, now on the boards through November 11th, directed by Chris Eubanks, is a delight.  There are no shortages of excellent voices in this production.  Both male and female choruses as well as the supporting characters carry Sir Arthur Sullivan's score with skill and gusto.
 
 Jason Morgan (who has a striking resemblance to Robin Williams) as the male romantic lead, Nanki-Pu (good ol' "Handkerchief"), who appears ("A Wondering Minstrel, I") strumming an oversized shamisen as if it were a Gibson guitar,  has an exceptional tenor voice.  And Emily Venezia, as the female lead, Yum-Yum (can you believe these names?) adds a beautiful soprano which is particularly effective in her duets with Nanki-Pu.
 
 Stealing the show, as always, is the character of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner.  Over 40 years ago, I was lucky enough to see Groucho Marx in the role of Ko-Ko, and he became the gold standard by which I measure all proceeding Ko-Kos. Just the memory of a Jewish Ko-Ko singing "The Flowers that Bloom In the Spring, Tra-La" or "Tit Willow" causes me to smile at my keyboard.  In the Celebration Company production, veteran character actor Jim Dobbs measures up pretty high on my Groucho scale.  He plays his comedic lines off the other characters with great aplomb and excellent timing.
 
 Debra Dobbs lyric voice and comic presentation make her a delight as Katisha, but Dobbs is too attractive to be completely believable in the part of the woman who is supposed to have a face that would stop a clock.  However, we can forgive her for that as her voice, talent and stage presence make her the obvious choice for that particular part.  And when teamed up with her husband, the two become captivatingly chamimg.
 
 But to this reviewer, the real find of the still-young season is the singing voice of Lincoln Machula, whose bass-baritone booms out in the role of the pompous Poo-Bah.  We have seen Machula in roles ranging from Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey, through Jimmy Farrell in The Playboy of the Western World to Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire and have always been awed by his versatile acting ability.  But his singing ability has blown us out of the water.  We certainly hope to hear him again in later musicals.
 
 Debbie Richardson's costumes are colorful and appropriate; appropriate in the fact that they are (particularly with the men) a whimsical blend of Japanese and Chinese.  The women are costumed much more accurately in Japanese kimonos, many of which are extremely elaborate while others are simple yokatas (summer kimonos).  However, I wish more had been done with hair stylings.  While the Celebration Company, as does all community theatres, operates on a shoe-string budget, it would have been nice if appropriate wigs had been worn rather than trying to make modern western hair lengths appear somewhat Asian.
 
 The pit orchestra was effective but simple with Kent Conrad on the piano and Mary Myers, who commutes from Springfield just to help out, as the percussionist.  Between the two of them, they provide all the instrumental accompaniment this production needs.  Too often have I heard a larger pit orchestra drown out the voices in Celebration Company musicals.  I am glad that the director did not fall into this trap.  Conrad and Myers are all that the production needs.
 
 In an October 17th letter to the editor of Pamphlet, U. of I. graduate student Aimee Rickman wrote, "...there are indeed some problems involved in white people dressing up as caricatures of other cultures for the sake of fun."  My gold-standard Ko-Ko, Groucho Marx, remarked over a generation ago that the only thing it was safe to make fun of was the man-eating shark.  But that was before the Animal Rights Movement, and so Groucho might have to adjust his remarks in today's society.  Indeed, the Japanese were ambivalent toward The Mikado for many years, feeling that it was not only a demeaning depiction of their proud culture, but a disrespectful slap in the face to the great Emperor Meiji.  To this complaint, W.A. Gilbert wrote, "The Mikado of the opera was an imaginary monarch of a remote period and cannot by any exercise of ingenuity be taken to be a slap on the existing institution."  Going a bit farther, G. K. Chesterton compared it to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels when he said, "Gilbert pursued and persecuted the evils of modern England until they had literally not a leg to stand on, exactly as did Swift. ... I doubt if there is a single joke in the whole play that fit the Japanese, but all the jokes in the whole play fit the English."
 
 And it is interesting to note that in 2001, in the town of Chichibu, Japan (which the locals claim, with no hard evidence, was the model for The Mikado's setting, Titi-Pu) The Tokyo Theatre Company produced The Mikado translated into Japanese.  It was extremely well received and in 2006, the Chichibu Mikado was performed at the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in London, England.
 
 And so we continue to wonder about the necessity of political correctness in today's society.  I sure wish Shozo Sato were in town so I could get his take on this.  However, until I can talk to him, I will say that while there might be a problem with all these white folks dressed up as caricatures of Japanese folks (and I lived in Japan for a couple of years, myself), I find The Mikado to be not only terribly funny to the point of whimsical silliness, but terribly enjoyable as well, and I congratulate the Celebration Company at the Station Theatre, the cast and the crew of this production for making me laugh.  Certainly there is damned little in the world today to make me do that.
 
 



 

James L. "Jim" Seay
Playwright, Drama Critic, and Director
 


Other Theatre Reviews:
: GERALD MANELY HOPKINS WAS RIGHT
: THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL
: ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD
: HEARTLAND THEATRE COMPANY
: IT'S A TYPICAL DAY IN DOGPATCH, U.S.A.
: THE CELEBRATION COMPANY
: EVERGREEN GROW THE LILACS
: DAVID; YOU AND I
: ONCE UPON A TIME ONCE ON THIS ISLAND
: AND TO THINK IT ALL STARTED IN CHICAGO
: THE MIRACLE WORKER
: BUS STOP
: A.K.A. THE CARMONE BROS. ITALIAN FOOD PRODUCTS CORP'S ANNUAL PASTA
: THE LION IN WINTER
: SPRINGFIELD'S MUNI OPERA PRODUCTION OF PETER PAN
: LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE STAGE MOTHER FROM HELL
: WILLIAMS' CAT IS NOT DECLAWED
: MISS SAIGON
: IT MUST BE ANOTHER CENTURY, 'CAUSE HERE COMES BRIGADOON AGAIN!
: ATTEND THE STORY OF SWEENEY TODD
: INDUCED DRAG AND METAPHORE
: EDGAR LEE MASTERS' SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY
: KEVIN MURPHY & DAN STUDLEY'S REEFER MADNESS, THE MUSICAL
: I HEAR AMERICA SINGING
: THREE SISTERS AT THE STATION THEATRE
: REVIEW OF WOYZECK AT THE STATION THEATRE
: THE CHRISTMAS EXPRESS
: YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT!
: STONE COLD DEAD SERIOUS
: URINETOWN
: THE MIKADO
: PROMETHEUS REMAINS BOUND
: THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER AND THE WATER IS ALWAYS WETTER
: ERIC BOGOSIAN'S SUBURBIA
: IS IT A CASE OF TOUGH LOVE OR LOVE BEING TOUGH?
: PLEASE, SIR, WE WANT SOME MORE
: REACHING FOR THE RAINBOW
: BACKDOOR PLAYERS
: HOT TIMES IN THE TODDLIN' TOWN
: PIPPIN
: THE SPEED OF DARKNESS
: ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH...
: SOMETHING WONDERFUL
: LESS THAN BRILLIANT TRACES
: RANTOUL AND DIE
: AND THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN: A REVIEW OF BETH HENLEY'S, CRIMES OF THE HEART
: THE MOUSETRAP
:

AH, AH, AH ---= DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL


: RED HOT WINTER V MELTS THE ICE
: MOTHER RUSSIA WAS NEVER LIKE THIS
: INTO THE WOODS
: OVARIES
: AN ALMOST HOLY PICTURE
: HISTORY AS A METAPHOR
: BROKEN FINGERS
: SHINING IN THE DARKNESS
: RAISING THE ROOF ONE RAFTER AT A TIME
: RANTOUL THEATRE GROUP - "BUS STOP"
: RUSSIAN DRESSING
: LOOK OUT, HERE COMES SATURN AGAIN!
: ZANE GREY MEETS STEPHEN KING
: THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH
: GOOD GRIEF, CHARLIE BROWNÂ…
: GREAT EXPECTATIONS
: THE MISS FIRECRACKER CONTEST
: THINGS YOU SHOULDNÂ’T SAY PAST MIDNIGHT
: BRECHT ON BRECHT
: THE PHANTOM TOLL BOOTH
: COPENHAGEN
: THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD
: LUSH LIFE NOT AS LUSH AS IT COULD BE
: SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS
: ASSASSINS
: DIFFERENCES TEACH US: KING LEAR AT THE KRANNERT
: BEAST ON THE MOON
: THE HILLS ARE STILL ALIVE
: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A GRAND OLD LADY
: PARFUMERIE
: THE GLASS MENAGERIE
: GUILTY CONSCIENCE
: THE MEDIUM AND THE TELEPHONE,
TWO SHORT OPERAS BY GIAN CARLO MENOTTI


 
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