Magical Objects and Therapeutic Yellowface

Christopher Renshaw’s Magical Objects

Until its final demise from lack of funding in 1982, the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company set the standard for performing Gilbert and Sullivan. Painstakingly repetitive and carefully controlled staging, gesture, delivery, design, and orchestration bred both familiarity and contempt, seen by diehard fans as having “simple charm”3 and by others as petrification. For the performers, adherence to the style was serious business. Kenneth Sandford, the company’s principal baritone from 1957 until 1982 (Pooh-bah in the 1966 videorecording), found “a kind of upper class gentility pervading the principal’s dressing rooms—a sort of public school ambience—and the cloister-like quiet backstage, as if the company was taking part in some time-honoured ritual far too serious to warrant any light-hearted banter.”4

For nearly one hundred years of performing The Mikado, the D’Oyly Carte style defined an authoritative Japaneseness whose appearance was defined by elaborate latex headpieces and wigs, heavy eye makeup, and spectacular costumes, and whose gestural vocabulary included mincing steps, fluttering fans, and exaggerated bowing. This definitive style of playing can be seen in the 1939 Schertzinger film and the 1966 videorecording of the D’Oyly Carte Company with the City of Birmingham Symphony, directed by Anthony Besch. Different performance choices became trademarks of the opera, as fixed as elements of the libretto or score. In an interview, longtime Savoy member Donald Adams recalled that when he took over the role of the Mikado from Darrell Fancourt, he wanted to change, among other things, Fancourt’s characteristic laugh: “I went to Bridgit D’Oyly Carte and told her I didn’t want to become a carbon copy. I wanted to try out some things of my own.” Bridgit D’Oyly Carte “understood, told me to go ahead and said she would inform me when I had stepped over the mark.” Having received permission, Adams did not change the laugh, but rather developed a variation that “begins much like Fancourt’s, but I wanted to top his, so the second time, mine is more extended.”5 This tradition was to some extent aided by the law because, with the significant exception of the United States, the legal hold that D’Oyly Carte exerted over Gilbert and Sullivan productions prevented any experimentation until 1962.

In many ways, the productions directed by Christopher Renshaw in England, Australia, and the United States from 1983 to 2004 depart consciously from this tradition. These productions originated in 1983 at London’s Sadler’s Wells Opera, then moved to the Sydney Opera House to celebrate the centennial for the opera house. With striking sets and costumes designed by Tim Goodchild, Renshaw also staged similar productions at England’s Opera North, the Opera Pacific in Orange County, and the State Opera of South Australia. A videorecording of the Opera Australia production, released in 1990, suggests Renshaw’s playful and engaging style. He has described his overt departure from D’Oyly Carte tradition and his desire to “kick” the more traditional style of Gilbert and Sullivan opera “in the nether regions”: We have a wonderful word in England called ‘twee,’ which is untranslatable. . . . The style [of Gilbert and Sullivan opera] was very twee—very unisexual, unforward, very nice, like taking tea. [My staging] is raucous and sexy and very popularistic in its approach.”6 This departure from D’Oyly Carte tradition is signaled openly when, in the first act finale of the Opera Australia version, Pish-Tush (John Germain) is chided by Pooh-Bah (Gregory Yurisich) for his overly exuberant cymbal-playing; he retorts “Well, that’s the way we did it at the D’Oyly Carte, I tell yeh!” Audience members familiar with D’Oyly Carte have the pleasure of recognizing these innovations, and for those who are not familiar, allusions such as this hammer the difference home.

Yet the D’Oyly Carte traditions are by no means dispensed with. Of a 1983 performance, reviewer Noel Goodwin noted, “Instead of profiting from lapsed copyright to revivify a fossilized tradition,” the New Sadler’s Wells version “seemed concerned to put back by the D’Oyly Carte-load the fidgety choruses, hops and skips, madly twirling parasols and other meaningless gestures.”7 Certain characteristic elements are retained, such as the mincing steps of the chorus of the “gentlemen of Japan,” Ko-Ko’s (Graeme Ewer) clowning with his ax, and Yum-Yum’s (Anne-Maree McDonald) graceful posing in “The Sun Whose Rays.” The Mikado (Robert Eddie) ends “My Object All Sublime” in a characteristic pose with upturned hand and fan. At the same time, performers are kept busy embellishing these traditional movements. At the end of “Three Little Maids” Yum-Yum uses a drill-sergeant whistle to direct the others to unfurl their fans in unison. The mincing and bowing of the Gentlemen of Japan becomes a set of stylized movements mimicking London businessmen on trains and subways. Nanki-Poo (Peter Cousens) is transformed into a seductive and rebellious roué who rides a bicycle during “A Wandering Minstrel, I”; however, the movement of the chorus accompanying him still echo the gestures established in Gilbert’s promptbooks. The ladies’ chorus poses elegantly in D’Oyly Carte fashion for “Braid the Raven Hair,” but they also blow bubbles. The Mikado’s characteristic laugh dissolves into a snicker that sounds more like Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz (or, for more contemporary viewers, the cartoon canine Scooby-Doo).

D’Oyly Carte’s “Japanese” gestures are juxtaposed with styles of Hollywood film, British comedy, and music hall to produce the effect of dissonance between what is British and Japanese, modern and traditional, familiar and foreign. Costumes, a crazy quilt of Japanese, Victorian, and contemporary styles—kimonos combined with schoolgirl collars and knickers, or with bowler hats, kid gloves, carnations, trousers, and spats—enhance this effect. Most memorable are these productions’ use of stage objects and design. In the Opera Australia version, the opening curtain is embellished with a host of Victorian advertisements, including a reproduction of the familiar 1885 Savoy playbill as well as ads for Beecham’s Pills, Liberty’s Art Fabrics, Cycles Clément, Beecham’s Music Portfolio featuring “Banjo Praises,” and Katisha’s Corsets. Prominently placed at the center of the curtain is an image of a “geisha” Queen Victoria positioned on a fan. The Gentlemen of Japan carry briefcases and umbrellas as well as fans that read “The Times.” Nanki-Poo enters riding a bicycle, and the “train of little ladies” rides a railcar made of parcels. The ladies’ chorus carries not only fans and parasols but also butterfly nets, lollipops, tennis rackets, field hockey sticks, balloons, and a soccer ball. The Mikado and Katisha become figurines on a mantelpiece, seated next to a stack of gigantic Gilbert and Sullivan librettos.

Renshaw consciously foregrounds the opera’s connections to japonaiserie, which he described as “just a fashion statement of that age, which was restlessly looking for things that were new.”8 But rather than providing a more pointed commentary on nineteenth-century British culture’s commodity racism, these productions play up the pleasurable dimension of this fashion so that its racial dimensions are notably muted. They do so by framing the craze for Japanese objects as part of a larger world of antique Victorian clutter, repositioning the opera as an amiable celebration of commodity fetishism rather than as a more troubling representation of a fictive Japan. The opera thus subsumes the Victorian obsession with collecting Japanese things into a contemporary fascination with Victoriana, the current interest in the nineteenth century that Cora Kaplan describes as “a complementary miscellany of evocations and recyclings . . . a constellation of images which became markers for particular moments of contemporary style and culture.”9

In the patrician setting of the Sydney Opera House, at least, the considerable musical and dramatic talents of the performers are emphasized over any racial mimicry. Yet these productions still remind us how difficult it is to leave behind the oversized and overdetermined icons of Japaneseness with its equally weighty reminders of Victorian racialization. The blended look of Japanese and Victorian English costume is by no means a seamless hybrid, but is yoked together in ways that seem cumbersome and even, in the case of the heavily made-up and awkwardly garbed figures of the Mikado and Katisha, even monstrous. The juxtaposition of what is familiar and what is figured as Japanese and foreign still generates much of the spectacular effect as well as the humor of these productions. In the videotaped Opera Australia version, audience laughter is heard not only at various modernizations, such as the topical references to particular politicians in office and national scandals and the pointed use of Australian slang, but also at the racialized humor of Ko-Ko’s improvisational clowning, complete with karate chops and aggressive cries of “Daihatsu,” “Honda,” and finally, “Kiri Te Kanawa!” After Ko-Ko and Katisha’s duet, “There Is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast,” a backdrop descends with a picture of a Victorian valentine inscribed “Love is a virtue that Endures For Ever”—and in smaller letters, “Made in Japan.” Such moments comment on the continued space the opera provides for commentary on contemporary fantasies of Japan as a source of foreign imports.

This implicit commentary, however, remains overshadowed by full-scale enjoyment of the spectacular nature of the objects themselves. In the Renshaw productions, the pleasure of The Mikado is not only that of a nostalgic look at Victorian commodities but also the sheer magic of their modern staging. Familiar Japanese things take on a new life, as characters pop in and out of giant porcelain vases, stand on huge Willow pattern plates, emerge from lacquered chests, or pose in front of massive fans. Pitti-Sing struggles to pour tea from an oversized teapot. Katisha (Heather Begg) drives a chariot made from a gigantic vase. Yum-Yum bathes for her wedding in a huge porcelain jar, pulling out a series of rubber ducks for comic effect. In the final scene, Pish-Tush feeds the Mikado his lunch with enormous chopsticks. Renshaw’s production recalls the spectacular display of japonaiserie in the 1885 Mikado, yet the objects on Renshaw’s stages no longer serve to draw the audience into a representation of Japanese life. The production invents new uses for these objects: parasols become shields or turn into displays of fireworks; fans serve as screens, swords, or executioner’s blocks. As these Japanese things become grossly enlarged or are put to new and ingenious uses, they recall the obsession with things Japanese at the heart of the opera’s first productions.

The japonaiserie of 1885 promoted a fiction of Japan, the knowledge of which was gained not through direct contact with people but by the possession of exotic objects. In turn, these items were not valued for their usefulness but rather for their ability to transform the domestic space with a touch of magic. This magic rubbed onto yellowface performance, whereby racial transformation promised immediate pleasure as well as more profound salutary effects.

Beginning with the 1885 Mikados, objects came to stand in for what is Japanese, robbing people of the power to signify themselves. Within this dynamic, it no longer mattered whether these objects had any actual connection to Japan (after all, the Willow pattern china was manufactured in England); the world of Titipu became known not as a flawed copy of Japan but as its own reality. The Renshaw productions build on this dynamic, whereby magical things define performances and give the stage its true vitality. That this production concept has traveled so well from London to Orange County, California, and to Sydney, Australia, testifies to how it is concept driven rather than performer driven. Any racial commentary necessarily becomes subsumed within these spectacular effects. Thus The Mikado becomes “lite” once more, buoyed by a blithe eclecticism that seems to wipe the opera free of racial intent.

Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy

In contrast to the Renshaw version, Mike Leigh’s much-acclaimed 1999 film Topsy-Turvy10 brings our attention back to the racial significance of yellowface. By creating a behind-the-scenes film about the opera’s 1885 premiere, Leigh presents an engaging and moving portrait of his characters. The understandings of The Mikado presented in these two versions seem radically different. Renshaw’s productions highlight the particular power of objects, featuring displays of japonaiserie and Victoriana that carry the show, regardless of its particular casting. Topsy-Turvy, in contrast, emphasizes characterization and the work of individual performers. Renshaw’s productions create a postmodern pastiche of dazzling effects that erases distinctions between past and present delights; Leigh, on the other hand, deliberately chooses to undercut what he calls a “chocolate box” approach to period drama.11

But I certainly thought it would be a good idea and somehow [a] healthy and necessary thing to cut through the layers and layers of encrustations and rusty barnacles of bad performances, all those fat middle-aged people pretending to be young in croaky voices—the arch conceit of it all. That’s not what it’s about. It’s much healthier than that, and much more organic and lively. And I just wanted to kind of get back to the essence of the thing, for what it’s worth.”12

But within this gritty realism, the film also does its share of racial imagining whereby performing The Mikado offers the promise of authentic cultural contact and Titipu becomes a space to play out a restorative fantasy of Japan. The film helps us understand The Mikado in terms of a more serious side of the Japan craze. T. J. Jackson Lears and Mari Yoshihara have suggested that a therapeutic or liberatory sensibility might be inherent in the Victorian penchant for Japanese art. Lears suggests that for those seeking to escape the neuroses of modern industrialized life, “premodern art promised spiritual comfort and therapeutic restoration.”13 In other words, The Mikado offers a way of inhabiting the beautiful world of Japanese things, a mode of performance that served to alleviate anxieties about the ills of modern life and to offer alternative ways of being. As a variety of scholars have documented, many artists, writers, intellectuals, politicians, travelers, and collectors from the later nineteenth into the twentieth century sought to satisfy multiple kinds of desire—aesthetic, spiritual, personal—through engagement with Japan.14 In comparison with these endeavors, The Mikado seems a quick fix, hardly to be taken seriously. But Leigh’s film does its best to stage the story of the opera in these terms.

The film details the tumultuous partnership of Gilbert, Sullivan, and Carte leading up to the premiere of The Mikado. In the early part of the film, Sullivan (Allan Corduner) and Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) have reached impasses in their creative life. Reviewers accuse Gilbert’s Princess Ida of exhibiting “symptoms of fatigue,” and Sullivan frets that “my orchestrations are becoming repetitious.” He expresses serious reservations about continuing to work with Gilbert’s “artificial and implausible situations.” Their collaboration is in danger of ending, with Sullivan threatening to break his contract with D’Oyly Carte in order to concentrate on grand opera rather than “trivial soufflés,” and Gilbert complaining of his inability to write a story that might suit his musical partner. This impasse affects more than just the reputations of Gilbert and Sullivan. One early scene depicts a dialogue between performers after a particularly difficult performance of Princess Ida, which has been made more trying by the effects of a heat wave. Savoy performer Richard Templeton (Timothy Spall) worries about the strain on his voice and playing before half-empty and inattentive houses: “One’s knocking one’s pipes out in a vain attempt to elicit a response from three colonial bishops, two elderly ladies, and an intoxicated costermonger. They’re all roasting in their own lard like the Christmas goose.” Templeton’s real concern, however, is about the future of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, on which his own career depends; he tells tenor Durward Lely (Kevin McKidd), “I fear that dear Mr. Gilbert has run out of ideas.”

Ironically, it is The Mikado that helps resurrect some kind of authenticity and profound artistic commitment from the light “topsy-turvydom” of Gilbert and Sullivan’s earlier work. In a pivotal sequence, Gilbert’s creative block is removed when his long-suffering wife Lucy (or “Kitty,” played by Lesley Manville) asks him to accompany her to the Knightsbridge Japanese Native Village. There he is deeply affected by the swordplay, dance, and music of Japanese performers; the film shows the apocryphal moment when a decorative Japanese sword, presumably from the exhibition, falls off his wall. He picks up the sword and engages in a moment of mock fighting, grimacing and uttering unintelligible imitations of the Japanese performers he has seen. Finally, a broad smile appears on his face as he has a sudden moment of inspiration. The next scene shows the chorus singing “Behold the Lord High Executioner,” followed by Grossmith’s entrance as Ko-Ko. In the following scene, Gilbert presents his new libretto to a now-laughing Sullivan.

In the making of the film, Leigh paid excessive attention to re-creating historical detail, such as period objects, even going so far as to using specially made lightbulbs and interior wallpaper that would be faithful to the 1885 setting.15 Despite careful attempts at historical fidelity in other aspects of the film, Leigh rearranged one important aspect of the opera’s genesis: the timing of the opening of the Japanese Native Village in Knightsbridge. In the film, the resolution of Gilbert’s creative crisis is prompted by his trip to the Japanese Native Village. But in reality, by the time the Japanese Village had opened, Gilbert and Sullivan were already deeply involved in the composition of the opera. On May 20, 1884, Gilbert had already sent to Sullivan the sketch of his plot for The Mikado, of which Sullivan wrote, “I think the subject excellent—funny.”16 Many of the numbers, including “Three Little Maids,” had already been conceived by the time the Japanese exhibition opened on January 10, 1885.17 Leigh has openly acknowledged that he changes this time frame: “There are one or two actual, factual deviations from the truth, the most basic of which is that Gilbert thought of The Mikado before the Japanese exhibition opened in London in 1884,” because in his words, “It was actually more dramatically interesting for him to get the idea by going there.”18

What is “dramatically interesting” is how, through this and other seemingly minor alterations, Gilbert is portrayed as having been inspired by a deep moment of cultural contact rather than by a more superficial exposure to japonaiserie. This is in keeping with the larger premise of the film in which communion with real Japanese people—rather than objects—becomes a necessary part of the larger revitalization of Gilbert and his company.

In another key scene, Gilbert brings in three Japanese women from Knightsbridge, accompanied by a Japanese man, to teach his Three Maids—Leonora Braham as Yum-Yum (Shirley Henderson), Sybil Gray as Peep-Bo (Cathy Sarah), and Jessie Bond as Pitti-Sing (Dorothy Atkinson)—how to use their fans and walk properly. This scene rings true with Leigh’s historical sources, such as François Cellier’s account of how Japanese inhabitants of the Knightsbridge Village attended rehearsals for the first Mikado and helped develop some of the choreography for the production:

As usual, the ladies proved more apt pupils than the men. Most apt of all, perhaps, were the “Three little Maids from School,” who fell into their stride (if such a term can be applied to the mincing step of the East) with remarkable readiness, footing their measures as though to the manner born.19

Yet Topsy-Turvy again changes subtle details in its rendition of this history. Cellier’s account suggests that at least one of the Japanese brought into the rehearsal understood enough English to make himself a valuable contributor to the coaching:

The Japanese dancer was a fairly accomplished linguist. The little gentleman artist was far too polite and refined to need any of the rude and hasty vernacular common to the impatient British stage-manager of the old school. For polished adjectives or suitable pronouns he would turn to the author, or, it might be, to Mr. John D’Auban, who was, as usual, engaged to arrange the incidental dances.20

In Leigh’s film the Japanese man, though dressed in Western clothing, is unable to understand any of Gilbert’s directions; neither he nor his bewildered female counterparts have much to do with the actual direction of the scene. These Japanese characters, though Cellier and others identified them as dancers, do not contribute any artistic skills to the Mikado cast; their presence is valuable only insofar as they “naturally” model the presumably typical Japanese gait and manner. Leigh’s scene highlights again how The Mikado’s success came from a creative genius that places value on Japanese authenticity. The scene emphasizes cultural insensitivity—Gilbert only shouts louder at the Japanese villagers when it becomes clear that they don’t understand English—but it also lauds Gilbert’s departure from the stock racial caricature. Gilbert’s desire for his performers to move in new and exciting ways “in the Japanese manner,” is contrasted to the predictably comic music hall movements previously taught to them by choreographer John D’Auban (Andy Serkis). The success of Gilbert’s inspiration is confirmed in the scene immediately following: the singing of “Three Little Maids,” in which the quick movements of the fan and the women’s walking is shown to be a theatrical revelation.

This fantasy of therapeutic cultural contact is sustained even as the film does not make claims for the believability of The Mikado’s yellowface. The Savoy players are portrayed as deliberately unconvincing racial impersonators; their believability as Japanese characters is compromised by closeups of exaggerated stage makeup, obvious wig lines, and exaggerated posing. Even though Gilbert tells his players that “this is an entirely original Japanese opera,” he is also well aware that he is fabricating yet another topsy-turvy scenario. In a rehearsal scene, Gilbert instructs Barrington, Grossmith, and Bond to hold their fans in an exaggerated manner, as if they were using them to thumb their noses, and utters, “Thus! The traditional Japanese posture as adopted by well-meaning but misguided underlings upon the departure of their august superiors.” Grossmith inquires, “Would that be a recognized Japanese attitude, Sir?” to which Gilbert replies, “Not as yet, Grossmith, but I have every confidence that it will become one.” Leigh himself is drawn by the irony of the first Savoy production, with “all the stuff about striving for authentic Japanese detail . . . in the context of a piece of work that is about as Japanese as fish and chips or steak and kidney pudding—it’s fascinating.”21 He cites a scene in which Gilbert objects to George Grossmith’s (Martin Savage) affectation of a cockney accent for his character of Ko-Ko:

He says, “I’m a cheap tailor, I thought it would be . . . ” and Gilbert says, “Nonsense! We’re in Japan, not [London]. Do it properly! [Laughs.] Of course, that is such nonsense anyway, because they’re interpreting Japanese in English terms. Grossmith is probably right, really.22

Yet the film still sustains the romance of characters artistically transformed by their contact with the natives. The film may gently mock the racial mimicry of the opera, but it also preserves a vision of an enigmatic and mystical authentic Japan as a curative to Western ills. Leigh’s film sets the drabness of Victorian England in stark contrast to the vivid settings and costuming of Titipu. Scenes from The Mikado, brightly lit and spectacularly staged, become the visual and sonic relief to the ugly realism of Victorian London. If earlier productions of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida and The Sorcerer encase the performers in heavy velvet and fur, force them into armor, or transform them into spirits and ghouls, The Mikado seems substantively different, a transformational moment in which troubled Victorian lives may be forgotten by playing Japanese.

In the film, wearing Japanese costumes is an extension of this imagined therapeutic encounter. The Savoy actors are transformed by their Japanese costumes as well as by their contact with the Japanese people. While their racial impersonation is not convincing, their playing Japanese does allow them to reach new heights of inspiration and performance. In two parallel scenes, the film depicts the radical responses of the men and women to their authentic Japanese dress, either careful reconstructions of Japanese clothing sized for his British actors or actual kimonos “imported from Japan via Liberty,” as Cellier also describes:

Most of the ladies’ dresses came from the ateliers of Messrs. Liberty & Co., and were, of course, of pure Japanese fabric. The gentlemen’s dresses were designed by Mr. C. Wilhelm from Japanese authorities. But some of the dresses worn by the principals were genuine and original Japanese ones of ancient date; that in which Miss Rosina Brandram appeared as “Katisha” was about two hundred years old. The magnificent gold-embroidered robe and petticoat of the Mikado was a faithful replica of the ancient official costume of the Japanese monarch; the strange-looking curled bag at the top of his head was intended to enclose the pig-tail. His face, too, was fashioned after the manner of the former Mikados, the natural eyebrows being shaved off and huge false ones painted on his forehead.

The hideous masks worn by the Banner-bearers were also precise copies of those which [were] used to adorn the Mikado’s Body-guard. They were intended to frighten the foe. Some antique armour had been purchased and brought from Japan, but it was found impossible to use it, as it was too small for any man above four feet five inches, yet, strange to say, it was so heavy that the strongest and most muscular man amongst the Savoyards would have found it difficult to pace across the stage with it on.23

The evident pride of costume designer Wilhelm (Jonathan Aris) and dresser Madame Leon (Alison Steadman) in the authenticity of the Japanese costumes is contrasted with the reactions of the different singers. In one scene, the Three Little Maids try out their kimonos in their dressing room and luxuriate in the sensual qualities of the silk that they are asked to wear. Leonora Braham thrills to the thought that there might be something indiscreet in her kimono, whereas Jessie Bond is more concerned that she will not be wearing a corset. Her fears of impropriety are echoed in a later scene in which Durward Lely is similarly worried about his having to perform in a scandalously short tunic and without his customary corset. In the next sequence we see Lely as Nanki-poo singing “A Wandering Minstrel, I” and displaying plenty of leg. Again, the film takes some liberties with history in imagining Gilbert’s performers as so offended; there is plenty of photographic evidence that Lely and male Savoy singers performed other roles that prominently displayed their legs. From her own accounts of waggling her extra-large obi, Jessie Bond was evidently not worried about drawing attention to key features of her Japanese costume. But the film insists on showing how the experience of wearing these Japanese costumes deeply affect how the Savoy actors displayed their bodies. Again, the radically transformative effects of these Japanese costumes, like the contact with Japanese people, upset conventional notions of dress and allow their wearers a profound change from their well-worn roles.

Like Leigh’s earlier films on contemporary Britain, Life Is Sweet (1991), Naked (1993), and Secrets and Lies (1996), Topsy-Turvy creates a gritty sense of historical realism with constant reminders of Victorian class, colonial, and gender hierarchies. The film highlights details that emphasize the more sordid or painful aspects of life in 1885, including prostitution, dentistry, abortion, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Both racism and imperialism are obvious aspects of the film; in one scene, the male leads for The Mikado discuss the defeat of General Gordon by the Mahdi’s troops at Khartoum; George Grossmith indignantly declares, “We bring them civilization and this is how they repay us!” As in his other films, Leigh worked with his cast extensively toward a psychological realism that can convey these more serious aspects of characters’ lives. Leigh is noted for his careful development of actors in his films, which includes intensive discussion, improvisation, and research in order to develop interactions more organically. “You see, with all of my films, the way we rehearse is that the actors don’t play themselves—it is character acting, and they learn how to be the character.”24 In one interview, Leigh describes the rehearsal process for the actors playing the Japanese inhabitants of the Knightsbridge Japanese Native Village:

What is fascinating and awful about the genesis of the piece was that these Dutchmen actually did go to Japan, pulled out men, women, and children—many without exit permits—and shipped them over to London for something like 53 days. They stored them in this hall near what is now the Imperial College and used them for this cultural exhibition. We didn’t know much about it initially, but when we did some research, we found out that Kabuki Theater was part of the exhibition. And I thought, “God, yes! Fantastic!” Because that would help influence Gilbert. So, to answer your question, it wasn’t so much because of Japanese cinema that we chose The Mikado, but once we were making it, it was a great gas to think, “Hey, we’re making a Japanese movie here.” In fact, there was a moment when I was working with the Japanese actors in the film—and I worked with them the same way I do everyone else; they’re all London-based actors—and doing these improvisations in this dark basement for about two and a half hours, pretending that they were in this ship on this journey from Yokohama to London. And I just sat on the floor in a corner, watching them act in character, and I thought, “Wow, I’m making an Ozu film here.” So, yes, it’s all in the mix, but there are very few surface references.25

Interestingly enough, it is clear that Leigh wanted the same degree of psychological preparation for playing the Japanese characters, yet the potential for these characters to show any psychological depth remains unfulfilled. The presence of the Japanese characters is limited to their brief appearances in the exhibition, as viewed by Gilbert, and in the rehearsals for the “Three Little Maids,” after which their presence is quickly upstaged by the brilliant Savoy performances. The depiction of the Japanese in the film, though rooted in realistic acting techniques, is ultimately not realistic but romanticized; they become enigmatic icons, part of the corroborative detail for the opera’s genesis. In his depictions of the Japanese, then, Leigh returns to a familiar trope: a transformative experience of cultural contact between British artists and Japanese artisans. The Mikado turns into another example of how a racial fantasy of Japan revitalizes the West.

For white women in particular, Yoshihara comments, the consumption of Japanese and other oriental goods offered vicarious “adventure as well as cultural refinement.”26 In general, the film shows the most sympathy for its female characters, contrasting how creative genesis for men such as Gilbert and Sullivan turns on the thwarted female reproduction of their wives and lovers. In the final scenes of the film, following the celebrated success of The Mikado, Sullivan is told of his mistress’s impending abortion, and Gilbert’s wife vents her frustration with her husband by describing her idea for an opera in which neglected wives run after their inattentive husbands and nannies push empty perambulators. In keeping with this bitter reality, we see Leonora Braham drunk in her dressing room, ironically whispering Gilbert’s lines to herself in a mirror, “Sometimes I sit and wonder, in my artless Japanese way, why it is that I am so much more attractive than anybody else in the whole world.” Her words might well end the film, but the final moments of the film in fact move away from this tragic note. As she sings “The Moon and I,” Braham is bathed in a radiant light; the camera moves back, then pans upward in a gesture of beauty, uplift, and transcendence. The musical and visual power of The Mikado seems to carry her away from an insecure and anxious life offstage. The Mikado again becomes exemplary of the pleasure of creative and racial transformation that imagines what is Japanese as a healing salve to the painful realities of 1885.

On the broadest level, the Christopher Renshaw productions and the Mike Leigh film show us two directions for The Mikado’s racial imagining. The first is the insouciant lightness of the opera, which plays Japanese through a willful fiction of spectacular objects; the other is a more profound yearning for a positive and transformative encounter with Japan. These two sets of productions show that what reanimates more contemporary Mikados such as these is not simply habit or nostalgia (though both undoubtedly play a role in any Gilbert and Sullivan production) but rather an ongoing fascination with how Japanese difference might be staged. The seductive power of the opera’s brand of racial transformation, of playing Japanese, rubs off on its viewers. Stepping into the imaginary space of Titipu, whether by viewing the opera, singing the music, or donning a kimono and fan, allows for the easy enjoyment of racial masquerade, a kind of fancy dress. Conversely, it might offer some relief from the weight of modern life through imagining alternative worlds of inspiration and creativity. Yet however compellingly light or transformative the touch of the opera, The Mikado still is freighted with questions regarding the representation of race, whether Japanese or, as we shall see in Part 2, other subjects of racial imagination.