Mikado, London Coliseum, Jonathan Miller, original director Feb 27 2008
Tradition is a funny thing. Although “only” 120 years old, the Mikado’s tradition of coy and pretty 3 girls, kimonos and large fans, scraping and kow-towing, and general simpering and mewing is dispensed with in this Mikado. Instead, “we are gentleman of Japan” is sung and actors squeeze their eyes into a slant—but they are dressed in formal 1920s tuxes and maid/bellboy uniforms of some grand, country hotel. Leads saunter in with lacrosse and tennis rackets, billiard cues and golf clubs, drink whiskey-and-waters, and furiously dust everything in sight. A cello, a grand piano, circular sofa, and large palm fronds—all in bone- white or yellow are framed by huge doors and windows. This is England in the ‘20s, not Japan in the 17th century, yet Titipu, yumyum and all the other odd names and dialogue remain the same. The effect is to have yet another layer of parody: England’s post-Imperial pomposity and corruption seen through Japanese fantasyland as seen through the glitz and style of Noel Coward/Groucho Marx posturing.
The bellhops illustrate the Sailor’s tale of Nankipoo, do a tap dance, grovel and sway to Mikado’s edicts. Maids twitter and featherdust, strewing flowerpetals for the Mikado, and then just as hurriedly sweep them up when he does not in fact arrive, yawn at tediously long aria of Koko, and generally act as a filter for the shenanigans of the leads. They are a choral buffer to the charming duets and arias. Nankipoo is a Rudy Valleyesque trombonist, Mikado a widebodied Chinaman of smiles and smirks, Koko an English peer, and Poobah a variety of voices and styles—snidely whiplash, cockney.
Some of the highpoints: Kateisha’s lament, straight and moving, a Wagnerian female pilot. Yumyum and Nankipoo’s love duet, the reading of the list “they will not be missed,” incorporating Diana’s butler, Harrod’s owner Mohamed, bank and Speakers in the news (apparently this is updated regularly; a book of lists by Suart, who’s played it for 20 years, was for sale). Koko’s receiving of “insults”; the hammy reactions to beheadings and buried alive, sudden turnabouts and happy endings, courting of Titwillowsong and Kateisha’s pearl-bedecked bosom (he spits one out, the pearl that is).
A lovely evening, and one can imagine the spectators of the same class as those portrayed on stage, of a century ago going out to buy sheet-music to play in their parlors in the company of fellow gentleman and ladies, singing along.
Tradition is a funny thing. Although “only” 120 years old, the Mikado’s tradition of coy and pretty 3 girls, kimonos and large fans, scraping and kow-towing, and general simpering and mewing is dispensed with in this Mikado. Instead, “we are gentleman of Japan” is sung and actors squeeze their eyes into a slant—but they are dressed in formal 1920s tuxes and maid/bellboy uniforms of some grand, country hotel. Leads saunter in with lacrosse and tennis rackets, billiard cues and golf clubs, drink whiskey-and-waters, and furiously dust everything in sight. A cello, a grand piano, circular sofa, and large palm fronds—all in bone- white or yellow are framed by huge doors and windows. This is England in the ‘20s, not Japan in the 17th century, yet Titipu, yumyum and all the other odd names and dialogue remain the same. The effect is to have yet another layer of parody: England’s post-Imperial pomposity and corruption seen through Japanese fantasyland as seen through the glitz and style of Noel Coward/Groucho Marx posturing.
The bellhops illustrate the Sailor’s tale of Nankipoo, do a tap dance, grovel and sway to Mikado’s edicts. Maids twitter and featherdust, strewing flowerpetals for the Mikado, and then just as hurriedly sweep them up when he does not in fact arrive, yawn at tediously long aria of Koko, and generally act as a filter for the shenanigans of the leads. They are a choral buffer to the charming duets and arias. Nankipoo is a Rudy Valleyesque trombonist, Mikado a widebodied Chinaman of smiles and smirks, Koko an English peer, and Poobah a variety of voices and styles—snidely whiplash, cockney.
Some of the highpoints: Kateisha’s lament, straight and moving, a Wagnerian female pilot. Yumyum and Nankipoo’s love duet, the reading of the list “they will not be missed,” incorporating Diana’s butler, Harrod’s owner Mohamed, bank and Speakers in the news (apparently this is updated regularly; a book of lists by Suart, who’s played it for 20 years, was for sale). Koko’s receiving of “insults”; the hammy reactions to beheadings and buried alive, sudden turnabouts and happy endings, courting of Titwillowsong and Kateisha’s pearl-bedecked bosom (he spits one out, the pearl that is).
A lovely evening, and one can imagine the spectators of the same class as those portrayed on stage, of a century ago going out to buy sheet-music to play in their parlors in the company of fellow gentleman and ladies, singing along.
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