OBSERVER: The Mikado
The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Victoria presents The Mikado from July 17 – 20 at the Alexander Theatre, Monash University, Clayton.
With music by Sir Arthur Sullivan and the libretto by W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado is a comic opera, featuring entertaining songs such as I’ve Got a Little List, A Wand’ring Minstrel I, Three Little Maids From School Are We, The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring and more.
The story tells of Nanki-Poo in love withYum-Yum but she’s betrothed to Ko-Ko, the new Lord High Executioner.
When the Mikado (or emperor) orders a beheading, Nanki-Poo and Ko-Ko try to come to an arrangement that doesn’t involve anyone losing their head.
However, the arrival in town of the spurned Katisha turns everything topsy-turvy. With melodious mischief and preposterous plots, the tangled web unravels; will the punishment fit the crime?
Gilbert’s imagined Japan is said to have been enriched by a London exhibition featuring a Japanese village inhabited by 100 citizens and the European obsession with everything Japanese following its re-opening to the world.
The distracting beauty of his Japanese setting allowed Gilbert to get away with poking fun at the staid social norms, absurd etiquette, and weighty bureaucracy of a colonising Victorian England.
Performance Season: July 17, 18, 19 at 7.30pm ; July 19, 20 at 2pm.
Venue: Alexander Theatre (Monash University), 48 Exhibition Walk, Clayton
Tickets: monash.edu/performing-arts-centres/event/the-mikado/
Additional regional performances: July 26 in Queenscliff, August 2 in Stawell and August 9-10 in Cowes.
Cheryl Threadgold

