Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado / Donkin, Saks, Stratford Festival
by Norman Campbell

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DVD Reviews of Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado / Donkin, Saks, Stratford Festival

DVD Review: A very good, funny production!
Summary: 4 Stars

The cast is very strong, and benefits from being actors, as opposed to singers. The weakest link in the cast (and I think any one will agree with me) is Henry Ingram as Nanki-Poo, who is not an actor, just a singer. He's not the young, handsome type that one would like to see in the role, nor is he even all that funny. Marie Baron as Yum-Yum is high spirited, bubbly, and funny. Also exceedinly comical is Richard McMillan's Pooh-Bah, who steals the show. Eric Donkin is a perfect Ko-Ko, of the D'Oyly Care breed. Pish-Tush (Allen Stewart-Coates) is generally a non-descript, but is of strong voice and personality here, and is left to be fairly memorable. Karen Wood is PERFECT for the adorable Pitti-Sing, and is cute and charming to boot! My least favorite presence in the cast, though, is Gidon Saks as The Mikado of Japan himself. Now, I love over the top performances, as you can tell from my praise of McMillan, but this one crosses the lines of what's bearable. I feel that a strong Mikado, next to being highly comical, should at least be somewhat intimidating. Saks just plays the Mikado as a big goofy man, that strikes fear into no one (except for the cast, for some strange reason).

The production was brilliantly and swiftly staged by Brian MacDonald, who keeps everything comical and at a swift pace.

(Incedentally, I did THE MIKADO myself this summer with the local G&S Society, a first-rate Summer Stock company. A Canadian tenor played Nanki-Poo, and he told me HORROR STORIES of what it was like for friends of his who have worked with Mr. MacDonald.)

This is the best out of the Stratford G&S series, since it's the beginning, and it was before MacDonald and musical director Carriere got too self-indulgent in what they thought they could do to Gilbert & Sullivan's work.

The two CBC documentaries included on the DVD are very informative. And I seriously doubt that it was really filmed live. The laughter and applause sounds canned, and you never ONCE see the audience. And from the way the camera moves, I think it was filmed in an empty theatre with the audience added later.

But this is still a first-rate production. Mnimalist and fast-paced, it is theatrically refershing, and a great introduction to G&S for any one!

Description of Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado / Donkin, Saks, Stratford Festival

The production is not lavish, with a single, unadorned set and fairly basic staging. But there are some brilliant effects such as the entrance of the Mikado, enclosed in a litter, which his carriers open to reveal him standing magnificently in a miniature interior. Many of the comic lines have been updated, and with impressive wit. It's too bad that their topicality results in a lot of 1980s Canadian references, which will leave 21st-century non-Canadians feeling left out. Still, this is a highly satisfying interpretation of a classic. --David Olivenbaum

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