AMERICAN THEATRE: Since its premiere in 1885, Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado has been performed primarily in the following manner: a non-Asian (usually all white) cast dons kimonos, puts chopsticks in their hair, and wears heavy eyeliner to portray the denizens of the fictional Japanese town of Titipu. For lovers of G&S, the opera is a classic, both for W.S. Gilbert’s satire of 19th-century British society and as a memorable showcase of Arthur Sullivan’s tuneful music (indeed, even though I’ve never seen The Mikado, even I can hum “Three Little Maids”).
2 comments:
As I have written on several Shakespeare articles, it is incredibly tricky producing plays that are supposed to be “classics” when they have problematic content. The Mikado is one of the most blatantly racist of these classic plays, but that doesn’t mean companies are going to stop producing it. I appreciate how this particular theater company choose to ask the groups discriminated against by the piece instead of just making assumptions about the best way to present it to a modern audience. So many companies will try to come up with a new way to approach a piece without actually talking to the people directly affected by its content. I think that their willingness to scrap months of work and engage in a real conversation about the piece with the Asian community sets a great precedent for how overhauling these problematic shows should work, if we must keep producing them.
I don't understand why they want to go to all the trouble of changing the entire context and cast for the Mikado. The show itself is problematic and has always been. It has always been a joke on Asian people and played usually by middle aged white men in kimonos. My question is- why not do it all? Are asian people when not performed by white people parodying them not entertaining? Why is it that one of the largest ethnic groups in the country is so underrepresented in entertainment- and its not for lack of performers to cast. Why did Allegiance fail? One of the only attempts to showcase the plight of a real Asian American story that so many people continue to turn their back on and ignore 70 years later.
Just don't do the damn Mikado anymore. You can change it all you want, but just do a different show, or allow shows to be written and performed about actual Asian people. People don't do the Jazz Singer, or the Hot Mikado anymore, because they're about using blackface and showing racist black stereotypes. So why continue to perform a show written about Asian exhibitionism in a time where there was a "Japanese Native Village" where you could watch "authentic Japanese people." Asian people are not to be prodded and and fetished as we, and our cultures so long have been. And it's time that finally changed. After years of old white men playing asian people in Hollywood, can it finally end? Just stop performing it!
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