I know that it is the kind of thing you either love or loathe, and that it makes me an irredeemable geek that I love it, but I was inordinately cheered up by seeing the local Savoyard production of The Mikado Saturday night. For approximately three hours, it made me forget how pissed I was that my eight-year-old had spilled water on my laptop and shorted out the keypad, and how guilty I felt when my four-year-old wailed inconsolably as I left him with a sitter. Because, no matter how much the mire of domesticity has felt like quicksand lately, you can always get a USB mouse, and, if you are four, be instantly consoled by a battle between the forces of Playmobil and Leg. And it was the genius of Gilbert and Sullivan to write an operetta that actually works better when it is performed with a fair amount of amateurishness and campiness—as long as the love and gusto is still there.
The Mikado is an amazing panoply of silly costumes, pretty songs and people motivated either by pure love or pure pettiness. My most musically literate friend organized what amounted to a field trip for us all last night: ten adults, seven kids, joining an already packed house (who knew?). Given the incredibly fond memories I have of my dad taking us to G&S productions every year, I had to bring my eight-year-old. And I have to say, the eight-year-olds—three boys, two girls—all seemed to enjoy it immensely. But then eight-year-olds do have a natural affinity for comically exaggerated characters and crazy turns of fate.
(picture of Tim Spall as the Mikado from Mike Leigh's Topsy Turvy--a film about the making of the opera that I recommend no matter how you feel about G&S.)
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