Friday, July 15, 2016

The Mikado Controversy: Moving to Italy

Family members who love The Lamplighters told us The Mikado was being set in Italy because there were complaints from the Asian community about racism and stereotyping in the operetta.

After all these years?  I hope that means that Asians are in a better place here and won't have to move to Italy.

I've tried listening to a recording to  better understand the controversy leading to the changes in a local production.


I see that the NY production was cancelled because of complaints of racism:


I suppose this chopsticks-in-your-hair-and-you're-Japanese stereotype is more heavy-handed than, say, Huckleberry Finn, which gets discussed in terms of its use of the N word and other racist things of that era.  (I think Mark Twain is actually commenting on racism when he has Aunt Sally ask whether anyone was hurt, and "Tom" says no, just a couple of niggers were killed, causing Aunt Sally to express relief that nobody was hurt.  I hope he wasn't trying for cheap laughs or to actually appeal to racists.)   The debate comes up as to whether the N word should be taken out or left and annotated in the book and by the teacher assigning the book to the class or whether it should not be assigned at all. 

I'm not sure just how the Lamplighters could "annotate" it and still use it as it's written, but it's ironic that when Asians seem to be so successful and admired (with Japan now the third strongest economy in the world), this comes to the front.  I guess the Japanese  just didn't have the clout to protest when people were, say, dragging them off to internment camps.  When you're losing all your belongings and being put behind barbed wire, you may not feel free to say, "By the way, I don't like the stereotypes of us in The Mikado."

I wrote to Jeri Gertz, the little girl I babysat from the time of her birth in 1955 to 1963, when her family moved to Boston, because she's now very active in theater productions in Hawaii.  I remembered that she had been in a production of the Mikado several years ago.  She told me she played  Pitti-Sing, one of the three little maids, about 20 years ago.  The other two maids were Japanese, as was Pooh-Bah.  Their executioner was black. 

When Jeri directed Sound of Music, her head Nazi was Japanese....!  She says they have a large Asian population there and always cross ethnic types in casting.   (Jeri is Jewish.)

(She's now directing the annual fall musical  for the Palace theater on The Big Island, where they're doing 9 to 5.  Last night was the first night of auditions!)

As we know from Lin-Manuel Miranda's  musical hit  Hamilton, Washington, Jefferson, and Aaron Burr were black, and Alexander Hamilton was Hispanic.  But that musical is designed to fight racism.

How is The Mikado racist?  What does it mean that producers are paying attention now?

No comments:

Post a Comment

I don't think this is the kind of community-provided bench the SF Chronicle was talking about today in its article https://www.sfchronic...