Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the generosity of so many who helped turn an unwieldy research project into a book, including Richard Morrison, Adam Brunner, and Doug Armato of the University of Minnesota Press. Karen Shimakawa and Mari Yoshihara provided valuable advice on the manuscript in its first incarnation. Thanks to Sara Cohen and Tomoko Hoogenboom for their hard work with library research and translation; I am also overwhelmingly grateful to Yukiko Terawaza for her excellent assistance in researching productions of The Mikado in Japan. I am honored by the trust of so many artists, and I would like especially to acknowledge the generosity of Shinichi Iwata for sharing his thoughts on the 1992 Super Ichiza production, and Yasuichi Tsukagoshi and Toru Sakakibara for allowing me access to materials and videorecordings of the Chichibu Mikado. My deep thanks to Ken Narasaki, Doris Baizley, Chil Kong, and Lodestone Theatre Ensemble for inviting me to see The Mikado Project and for sharing their script with me. Duncan Taylor-Jones and Mary Glen Chitty kindly allowed me the use of their original poster designs and family pictures, and I express my gratitude to them as well as to William Becker, Anne Covell, Erin Schleigh, and Wilfrid de Freitas for illustrations for this book.

My research was supported by a sabbatical and funding from the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, as well as by research support from the Department of English, the Humanities Institute, and the Institute for Advanced Study. I am grateful not only for this financial support from my university but also for the intellectual exchange, professional wisdom, and moral support of students, colleagues, and friends too numerous to list here. My special appreciation goes to Paula Rabinowitz, Michael Hancher, Lois Cucullu, Maria Fitzgerald, Sarah Pradt, Maki Isaka, Jigna Desai, and Margaret Werry. I have had the great pleasure of sharing many of these ideas at much earlier stages with colleagues in Asian American studies and Asian American performance; Imogene Lim, Bob Lee, Kent Ono, SanSan Kwan, Dan Bacalzo, Esther Kim Lee, Sean Metzger, Lucy San Pablo Burns, Priya Srinivasan, Jack Tchen, and Krystyn Moon all contributed wonderful ideas to this project. A warm thank-you to Cathy Choy and Tamara Ho, who shared their recollections of Pomona College with me.

I count myself extremely lucky to have such a rich and vital community of colleagues, friends, and family in which to grow this project. I could not have survived this research project without the constant encouragement of my dear friend and colleague Erika Lee, whose graceful command not only of history but also of common sense constantly amazes me. I also thank Mark Buccella, Joe Gerteis, Teresa Swartz, Doug Hartmann, Karen Ho, Jeff Chen, Leyla Ezdinli, Ranu Samantrai, De Witt Kilgore, Nicole Chaisson, Laura Gurak, Nancy Bayer, Ruth Dill-Macky, and the many others whose polite interest in The Mikado never seemed to flag, even though mine certainly did. I have been supported in work and at play by my loving family: my mother, sisters, and the rest of the Lee, Kinneavy, Tsou, Robinson, Wait, Battista, Porter, Munro, and Chapman clans. My father died before I could show him this book in print, but I know he would have been proud of my latest work of scholarship. My husband Kevin and sons Julian and Dylan deserve the most credit for seeing this book through to its logical end. Finally, The Japan of Pure Invention really would not have been possible without Yuko Matsukawa, whose expert knowledge, creative powers, and passionate intellectual life have long inspired me. Anyone who knows her will recognize her generosity of mind and spirit at work here.

During one of the first summers after Kevin and I moved to Minnesota, we spent a beautiful summer evening bicycling by Lake Harriet. As we paused to admire the view—the blue lake, people picnicking, children and dogs frolicking in the grass—the orchestra in the bandshell struck up strains of a familiar overture, followed by singers performing a selection of the most famous songs from The Mikado. Full makeup and scenery were not necessary for this concert version; only kimonos and fans indicated that these white performers were meant to be Japanese. As a trio pertly trilled “Three Little Maids,” coquettishly parading with fans in hand, I tried to explain to my husband what the lasting attraction of this opera and its quaint racial mimicry might be. “Do you think,” he asked, “that they really understand what they’re doing?” I couldn’t, at the time, answer this question, but I am grateful to my dear husband and so many others for asking it then and repeatedly, in so many words, over the following years until it became my own.