“The Mikado”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - February 2010

Unmodified rapture!

I just grinned from ear to ear from the first note to the last of this joyous production of The Mikado. Director Jim Charles has found a perfect cast who combine the strong comedic skills and wonderful voices necessary to bring Gilbert’s humor and Sullivan melodies to vivid life. To top it all off, this show looks marvelous – colorful and professional – and this1885 operetta looks right at home in the 1874 Cohoes Music Hall, a building that has surely reverberated with Sullivan’s music on many occasions over the years.

Anyone who reads my reviews with any frequency knows that I am a HUGE Gilbert & Sullivan fan. Gilbertian Purists Take Note: I studied with Wilford Leach, the Tony-award winning director of the 1981 NY Shakespeare Festival Production of The Pirates of Penzance. That does not mean I want every modern Gilbert & Sullivan production to be similarly loose with orchestration and the insertion songs from other operettas, but it does mean that I believe strongly that Gilbert intended his works to be FUNNY, not ploddingly dull as they were in long and lingering death of the D’Oyly Carte Company.

This production perfectly proves my point that you can make G&S both howlingly funny and musically meticulous. Charles is very faithful to Gilbert’s libretto, and even manages to make old and creaky jokes like “I saw that my suit was hopeless” work again, but the performances that he gets from his competent cast are fresh and engaging rather than ossified.

For the record, The Mikado is not my favorite G&S operetta*, although it is the one I know the best. I have directed it twice and seen it innumerable times…and I still cannot tell you the plot. Rather than have me stumble through another attempt, click through to the Mikado page at the Gilbert & Sullivan Archive. But as Tom Lehrer said, “One can always count on Gilbert and Sullivan for a rousing finale, full of words and music and signifying nothing.” The plot of “The Mikado” – a happy wholesome family show about decapitation and suicide – signifies more than nothing, but it is full of wonderful words and glorious music. Who could ask for anything more?

Jason Whitfield, who managed to underwhelm me with his various performances at the Mac-Haydn last summer, was a revelation in the leading role of Ko-Ko, a role he has played once before at Knoxville Opera. All of the leads are heavily made-up in white face – a cross between Kabuki and Ringling Brothers’ clown designed by Kimberly Stone – so Whitfield’s leading man features are thoroughly disguised. That is why clowns paint their faces, to free themselves from who they are and transform themselves into instruments of comedy and mayhem. Charles often has Whitfield literally run amok on the stage, finding all the natural opportunities for laughs without forcing the envelope or sinking into an un-Gilbertian unseemliness.

Andrew Lipman is a perfect Pooh-Bah, again aided by Stone’s sublime make-up and Karin mason’s elegant, unrestrictive costumes. When playing a character who was born sneering, it helps to have the sneer painted on. I was particularly impressed with his performance during the rather odd scene where Pooh-Bah meets the female chorus and apparently has some sort of allergic reaction, one which never recurs during subsequent scenes of feminine proximity. I almost understood what that bit was all about.

I saw understudy John Farchione as Nanki-Poo, a role he played for the entire first weekend of the run of this production due to Tony Edgerton’s illness. You may see Edgerton, who was hoping to be well enough to rejoin the cast for the second weekend and the Pittsfield performances, in which case you will see Farchione in the chorus. I postponed my visit to Cohoes to give Farchione a few days to master the role, which he undertook on opening night with just 24-hours notice, and I liked him tremendously. Nanki-Poo is a cloyingly sweet tenor, and it takes a strong performer to keep him from coming across as insipidly as he is written. Farchione brought the ideal mix of ingenuity and cunning to the role. I realized as I watched his performance that I have seen an awful lot of “well-seasoned juveniles” in the part, and it was refreshing to see an actual 20-something in the role.

The female chorus and the three little Maids – Yum-Yum (Lauren-Rose King), Pitti-Sing (Caroline Kobylarz), and Peep-Bo (Hayley Hoffmeister) – have completely mastered the art of giggling behind their hands, a skill that does not come naturally to occidental women. Charles has them literally bouncing about with girlish glee, which is highly entertaining.

King is a pert little Yum-Yum, a girl of enormous ego and no guile. She sings the part beautifully, and there was a nice match between her and Farchione’s Nanki-Poo. Kobylarz has more of a belter’s voice, which works for a shameless hussy like Pitti-Sing but which may give purists a bit of a cringe (but only a very little bit, I think.) Poor old Peep-Bo is the auxiliary Little Maid without much to do (her sudden exit in Act II is always annoying and frustrating) but Hoffmeister makes the most of her on-stage moments.

Emily Geller seems more interested in singing the role of Katisha than in playing the part, harkening back to the bad old days of the D’Oyly Carte. Until There is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast, Katisha’s music is all in a minor key and her lyrics are incredibly gloomy. The trick is to find the fun in this woman, and the key to that is her healthy lust. She is a woman in her sexual prime and she wants her Boy-Toy! That she has to settle for Ko-Ko is typical of Gilbert’s opinion of middle-aged women, but Geller does get a pretty good bargain here in the secretly hunky Whitfield.

Ryan Latour manages to actually make something memorable of the awkward role of Pish-Tush, who functions purely musically to add an additional baritone voice when needed, and figures not at all in the plot.

The title role, while integral to the plot, remains one of Gilbert’s most enigmatic characters. I have seen a variety of interpretations from stately to acrobatic, and I can’t say Andrew Ford’s here is one of my favorites. He lacks the necessary vocal gravitas to convince that he commands anyone, anywhere.

My younger son, who accompanied me to Cohoes is under the impression that The Mikado is terribly racist. I disagree, and I am sure that, if I were wrong, someone over the course of the last 125 years would have noticed. Gilbert clearly states that his “Gentlemen of Japan” “figure in lively paint…on vase and jar, on screen and fan.” They are not real people, they are little painted caricatures. And they are definitely NOT Japanese – they are British through and through. It just so happened that in the mid-1880’s there was a great craze for all things Japanese, and Gilbert and Sullivan cashed in on it. In the 1987 English National Opera production, Eric Idle as Ko-Ko unfurled the Mikado’s missive in Act II and exclaimed in horror “It’s in Japanese!!” No one in Titipu, it seems, can read Japanese. Hmmmm….

Having praised Stone’s make-up for the leads, I have to ask why the male chorus is using the shade of grease-paint used by the white guys who played Native Americans in 1960’s TV westerns. Why can’t everyone be in white face? But she more than makes up for this minor glitch by designing wonderful wigs, notably the flowing white number the Mikado wears that makes him look like one of those Japanese Snow Monkeys who sit in the geothermal pools.

Overall, this production is visually stunning. Mason’s costumes, Stone’s wigs and make-up, Matt Fick’s lighting design, and Christina Williams set awash with cherry blossoms and backed by an enormous fan provide an ongoing whirlwind of color to match Sullivan’s music, which is ably rendered by Joshua Zecher-Ross and the Cohoes Music Hall Orchestra. There are six brass/woodwind instruments in the eight piece band, and once they make it through a truncated and rather feeble version of Sullivan’s overture, they are on sound footing supporting the un-miked company for a strong sound.

Once, during intermission at a production of Ruddigore, I overheard a conversation between two ladies seated in front of me:
Lady #1: What language did Gilbert & Sullivan write in?
Lady #2: English.
Lady #1: Oh, well no wonder I can’t understand a word of it.

Most of this cast is new to C-R Productions, and most are operatically trained singers. Opera singers are trained to sing over a full orchestra without microphones. Opera companies with the capability of projecting supertitles often do so even for works originally written English, like the Gilbert & Sullivan canon, for the benefit of people like the ladies described above. Of course this is not possible at the Cohoes Music Hall.

Because I know every word of this libretto I am a poor judge of how clearly this cast enunciated, although my impression was that they sang very clearly even when going at break-neck speed. My son complained that he couldn’t understand Geller, who was singing in the most overtly operatic style. But for those of you with problems, fear not, for Charles has his actors use helpful hand gestures at every opportunity. In fact, in the Act II quintet See How The Fates Their Gifts Allot they were actually using American Sign Language! While I found this a bit much, I have to admit that it was also rather fascinating

If you have never seen a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta before, or you have children you would like to introduce to the joys of the Savoy operas, this production is an excellent choice. And if, like me, you have seen a million Mikados before, this one is well worth adding to your experience. If you live in the Capital District, the show runs February 25-28 at the Cohoes Music Hall, and if you live in the Berkshires, its coming to the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield for two performances on March 6. Don’t miss it!

The C-R Productions staging of The Mikado runs through February 28 at the Cohoes Music Hall, 58 Remsen Street in Cohoes, NY, and at 3 & 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 6 at the Colonial Theatre, 111 South Street in Pittsfield, MA. The show runs two and a half hours with one intermission and is suitable for the whole family. Tickets are $25-$35. Call the box office at 518-237-5858 for information and reservations.

* My sentimental favorite is Princess Ida, but I think Iolanthe is their best work overall.

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