This Irreverent 'Mikado'?

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, MAY 2.2, 1983 H 23 ... "Dressing the classics in contemporary clothes is a form of nose-thumbing that, at its infrequent best, is a homage to the past. " (Donal Henahan), MUSIC VIEW DONALHENAHAN Just What Are the Motives for This Irreverent 'Mikado'? 'In the main hall of a school that I once passed through know more of Mr. Sellars's work than I do have compared there stood a lifesize copy of the Discus Thrower, for him favorably with Orson Welles, Mike Nichols, Giorgio ever poised to fling his saucer into the admissions of- Strehier, Sarah Caldwell and, for all I know, Barnum and , fice. With the persistence and ingenuity of youth, stu· Bailey. No one, so far as I know, has compared him with dent provocateurs would periodically find ways to Richard D'Oyly Carte, the font of the Savoyard tradition. drag the crouching Grecian figure into the modem world. , .- Anyone arriving early of a morning might find a football . Clearly, however, Mr. Sellars is a hot property. He Is helmet on the statue's head, or perhaps a colorful sweat· , also a fearsomely ingenious fellow, as his Chicago staging band. Another time, poor old Discobolus would be clutch· did not let one forget for a moment. Without changing the , TOllY Romano ing a slide rule, or Wlaybe wearing ~ athietic supporter. Gilbert text or the Sullivan music much'rnore than they It ,was pure sophomoric humor, but ,even blase seniors have traditionally been altered, even by the D'Oyly Carte Diane Curry as Katisha and Donald Adams as the Mikado, in the Lyric Opera of Chicago . were amused, and probably a few of the younger teach· company itself, Mr. Sellars draped a new conceptual suit production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado," directed by Peter Sellars. ers, too. It helped downtrodden youth build solidarity , around the old bones of "The Mikado." The "gentremen of against the ruling elders. Japan" were identically dressed executives. Nanki·Poo, The urge to dress the classics in contemporary far froin being disguised as a second trombone, turned up flopping about on the floor, presumably In the throes of cently brought to Broadway. Mr. Sellars's staging poked clothes is one that also overtakes people in the performing as a rock star with electric guitar. The three little girls prenuptial desire, while attempting to harmonize. The the Savoyard tradition in the ribs rather hard, emphasiz. arts. It is a form of nose-thumbing that, at its infrequent from school were randy, hot·breathed numbers who music, understandably, was all but lost. I assumed that ing the broad humor and brashness of the original "Mika· best, is a horn.age to the past and may scrape the crust off ' clutched hungrily at Nanki-Poo and boogied clumsily to , , the director thought so little of Sullivan's score at this do" but ignoring the fey charm and understated wit that conventions. Some such aim must be motivating Peter the beat of a transistor radio. The Mikado himself arrived point that he wanted to underline its genteel vulgarity'by both the text and the music are so rich in. I think I wouid Sellars, the bright young director whose updated staging in a Datsun sports car. Within the framework of a modem giving it the "Animal House" treatment. But, as was tire quickly of Mr. Sellars's version, witty though it is. of "The Mikado" was produced recently by Chicago's ,Japan that is hard to distinguish from America, Mr. Sel· made clear in an essay by the director himself that was In fact, when Donald Adams, who was the lovably Lyric Opera. Mr. Sellars is the 25-year-old director from lars made dozens of funny Or at least moderately amusing ,distributed to the press, he meant nothing of the sort. bloodthirsty Mikado of some 2,000 performances in his Harvard whose operatic iconoclasms already include a points: when, for instance, Yum·Yum sang her hymn of "The madrigal is the loveliest music in the score," he D'Oyly Carte days, appeared in this production and did Handel "Orlando" in which the hero was an American as· praise to her own beauty, she primped with a hotcomb writes. "A joke, yes, but not a joke." And yet he found it his familiar turn, I found myself thinking kind thoughts I tronaut, a Haydn"Armida" transported to Vietnam and a , and gazed fondly into an electrically illuminated mirror. necessary to undermine that same music. Someone is off about the tradition he represents. Mr. Adams made me Mozart "Don Giovanni" that had the Don shooting dope in . The show, in fact, depended heavily on a succession of the track here and I suspect it is the director, not the es. , realize how much I would like, once more, to see a genu· the champagne aria and dining on I!ig Macs in the finale. sight gags, some delightful, others predictable and feeble. sayist. There were a good many other such moments of ine, unashamed D'Oyly Carte performance. That, of Joseph Papp has signed thiS-theatrical meteorite to At times, when his ingenuity failed him, Mr. Sellars was failing inspiration, when jokes aqd horseplay made the course, will never be possible because, after more than a stage "The Magic Flute" in Boston and later, in Central 'thrown back on merely frantic action, barely related to work itself seem incidental to the production's cleverness. century of preserving the Savoy stagings as if in formal· Park. Robert Brustein has engaged him for the new Peter the text or to his overall concept. What Mr. Sellars and his collaborators produced In dehyde, the company died last year of that dread disease, Maxwell Davies opera, "The Lighthouse," also in Boston. One such moment - a long moment - came during Chicago, I would say, was not "The Mikado," but "A loss of government subsidy. Gilbert and Sullivan them· A collaboration with Andy Warhol is being discussed, the singing of the Madrigal (' 'Brightly dawns our wedding Mikado," a trendy commentary on the work in the man· selves still live, however,'and they may even survive the naturally, as well as a television production of Virgil day") by Yum·Yum, Pitti-Sing, Nanki·Poo and Pish ner of the black "Hot Mikado" of a generation ago or, per· trip in the time-machine that they were treated to in Chi· ,Thomson's "Four Saints in Three Acts." Critics who Tush. The. two ro~antically entwined couples ended up haps, the pop "Pirates of Penzance" that Mr. Papp re- ~. .

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