From my usual source of news and platitudes comes THIS about newly staging Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado.

When a youngster, I saw it staged during the D'Oyly Carte incursion on Boston, and thoroughly enjoyed it as I did all their work.

Somewhat later, but still over a decade ago, I remember the subject coming up of whether it was demeaning to the Japanese people and my reaction was with the majority: "It's not even about the Japanese people!"

Gilbert & Sullivan roundly lampooned their own kind in Trial By Jury, H.M.S. Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance and didn't hesitate to involve fellow Europeans such as in The Gondoliers; their characters were witty and gave as good as they got, with period sentiments on display Patience, Princess Ida, Iolanthe, Utopia Limited.

I heard an apocryphal tale of a post-War production of the Mikado operetta in Japan to great amusement of the locals, who 'got' it. I considered the subject closed for years, but along comes this article in The New York Times and of course there's this thing called the Twenty-First Century soon to be The Twenty-First Century brought to you by Trump Corp.

I'll only add that if one accepts "yellow-face" as an acceptable acting ploy (with the likely exception of Mickey Rooney's buck-toothed fabrication in Breakfast at Tiffany's), then turnabout is fair play and I've witnessed turnabout aplenty. One of my fond memories is a staging of Li'l Abner by an all oriental cast with Watergate allusions thrown in for good measure.

I'm placing this above the line because it's musical and theatrical but I leave it to the gods of Mudcat to determine whether it deserves to so reside.