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U-Press Telegram
Long Beach Press Telegram
Los Angeles Newspaper Group
u.presstelegram.com
July 10, 2003 Experience counts for director
of 'The Mikado'
By Alessandra Djurklou
Staff Writer When hiring a director for your biggest musical
production of the year, you should probably go with someone who has
plenty of experience.
Kent Johnson, who directs the Bellflower Theater Company's production
of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado," which opens tonight at the
Bellflower Civic Auditorium, would appear to qualify.
He has previously directed the show four times and has acted in it as
well.
"I did my first `Mikado' in 1946," said Johnson, an avowed Gilbert and
Sullivan fan who is also directing the pair's "Gondoliers" at the West
End Theater in Los Alamitos later this month. "I played Nanki-Poo."
Written by William Gilbert, with a score by Arthur Sullivan, "The
Mikado" is one of the creative pair's enduring operettas, as or even
more popular than "H.M.S. Pinafore" and "Pirates of Penzance."
And, despite its Japanese trappings, from Asian musical instruments to
kimonos to fans, it is an utterly British show.
"The Mikado" tells the tale of Nanki-Poo, the emperor's son, who has
run away from court to get away from the ravenous Katisha, an older
woman who insists on marrying him. Nanki-Poo disguises himself as a
traveling minstrel and flees to the town of Titipu, where he falls in
love with a schoolgirl named Yum-Yum.
Yum-Yum can't marry him because she is being groomed to marry her
guardian, Ko-Ko. Ko-Ko has his own troubles. He is the town's new Lord
High Executioner, but the first person he needs to execute is himself,
for committing the mortal sin of flirting.
Understandably, he puts his sentence off, but things get sticky when
the emperor of Japan shows up in Titipu to find out why there have
been no executions lately.
In the 118 years since it premiered, the show has been done in many
different ways. One version more than a decade ago put the gentlemen
and ladies of Japan in Edwardian boaters and summer dresses. And a
recent adaptation, "The Hot Mikado," does away with much of Sullivan's
score in favor of more contemporary music.
The Bellflower show will be traditional, said Johnson.
"I try to stay true to Gilbert's intention," said Johnson, though he
acknowledges that the original "Mikado's" style may be "more stodgy
than contemporary audiences are used to."
Still, even Gilbert and Sullivan were open to innovation. One number
in the show, "A Little List," is written to be modernized. The song,
which is sung by Lord High Executioner Ko-Ko, details who will be
offed once he gets started. Those who make the list are usually
politicians, celebrities or anyone who is in the public eye at the
moment.
"It's not to be cruel, but to draw a laugh … a cheap one, if you
will," Johnson said.
Eric Cajiuat, who plays Ko-Ko, gets to add some lines of his own.
"I took a shot at country line dancing and Harry Potter," Cajiuat
said.
This is Cajiuat's first show with the Bellflower Theater Company, but
not his first shot at Ko-Ko. He also has experience with other Gilbert
and Sullivan shows.
"One of the first things I did was `Pirates of Penzance,' " he said.
"I played the Major General, and was the youngest in the past."
Not only does playing much older characters not faze him, "there's no
patter song that scares me," he adds, referring to the famously
tongue-twisting "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from "Penzance."
Both Johnson and Cajiuat's familiarity with "The Mikado" should be a
comfort to the Bellflower Theater Company, since the show is by far
its most ambitious to date. To give the operetta room to breathe, the
company has switched venues from its miniscule black box theater to
the civic auditorium.
This isn't, however, the first time the company has done a musical.
Its last show, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," was also directed
by Johnson.
After all, there's nothing like hiring a director with experience when
you set out to put on a show.
Alessandra Djurklou can be reached at (562) 499-1252 or by e-mail at
alessandra.djurklou@presstelegram.com |
