Dramaturg's Notes:
GLOW Lyric Theatre
Greenville, SC
Summer 2015
by Allison Gibbes

Why Perform The Hot Mikado?

 

In 1978, Edward Said published Orientalism, a term that refers to the way people in the global West, known as the Occident, tend to think about people in the East, or the Orient. Within European and American (US) mentality, Eastern countries such as China, Japan, Korea, and even Africa seemed very exotic and different. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado premiered in England in 1885, Japan was still a far-off and exotic land. Trade between the two countries had brought some Japanese art and fashions which gave Europeans a superficial knowledge of Japanese culture. Of course, The Mikado, while set in Japan, is not about Japan at all. As with most of their works, The Mikado actually a witty satire of British politics. Their appropriation of Japanese symbols and character types was entirely based on stereotypes. 

 

This is how The Hot Mikado makes a statement. By revising the show for a multi-cultural cast and adding a syncopated swing-time beat - a musical genre which owes a lot to the people of color community -  to the score on top of the references to Japan, the resulting musical comments on the shallowness in putting on an appropriated culture. Whereas the original production of The Mikado would have been performed by a cast of white English singers pretending to be Japanese, The Hot Mikado offers unabashedly self-conscious jokes about the absurdity of wearing another culture like a costume. 

 

The Hot Mikado adds a diverse perspective to a widely-produced white European operetta. While maintaining Gilbert and Sullivan's complex score and bitingly witty style, adapters David H. Bell and Rob Bowman adjusted the show to allow an audience to identify with it a century later. For a contemporary American (US) audience, the play reminds us of the diversity of the Jazz Age and the stunning talents and performances that people of color brought to United States culture. Where The Mikado proves the differences between the east and the west, The Hot Mikado shows the immense value of different cultures and voices.