Review BY Laura Outerbridge THE WASHINGTON POST

Dude! Like the Virginia Opera's totally rad adaptation of "The Mikado" isn't even light opera, like it's the anti-opera - like totally!

Dig, it's even called "The Not Mikado," like how totally righteous! Worth Gardner, the director guy (who did this punk Mikado thing in 1983) calls it a "jazz riff" on the original Gilbert and Sullivan scene, which is, by the way, too moldy for any modern mall-going citizen to appreciate. Way!

The hero is a dude on wheels named Nanki-poo, the son of the ruling Mikado and "heir to the chair."

Played by David Gunderman, he's a total composite of Garth and Wayne and Bill and Ted, only in black leather short-shorts, a tummy-revealing leather bikini top and tight leather gaiters. Disguised as a "minstrel," he spends much of the time cruising on roller blades in search of "the babe-alicious" Yum-yum (Rebecca Baxter), a valley girl in flower-power biker shorts and leather bustier.

Fellow val-gals Pitti-sing and Peep-bo (Rebecca Hirsch and Wendy Perelman) play like a dippy Greek chorus, comparing the play's action to episodes of "Beverly Hills 90210" and the plots of "Home Alone" and "Ghost."

Nanki-poo rolls up against competition for Yum-yum, in the form of Ko-ko, the Lord High Executioner (Kurt Johns), a Robert De Niro sound-alike whose goofy malapropisms slaughter only the English language. Yum-yum is his ward, see, and he's already arranged to do his connubial duty by her.

But seriously folks.

"The Not Mikado" pretty much travels the same twisted plot path as the original, but with wacked-out modern characterizations and occasionally hilarious commentary.

Katisha, the female heavy, is played by the very male Brian Cahill, who camps it up as a heavy-metal mama with Patti LaBelle overtones and a thing for the nubile Nanki-poo. Poo-bah (Howard Kaye), the consumate bureaucrat, is an ultra-camp vamp right out of the "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." The only straight man in evidence is the Mikado himself (Dennis Fury), a splendidly costumed Mummers Parade butterfly, with a gold lame cape studded with shiny compact discs and George Clinton high-rise sneakers.

Mr. Kaye, the production's dance captain, kept the cast members on their toes throughout with high-stepping, hip-wiggling choreography.

Music director Scott Woolley packed the soundtrack with pop radio references, including Michael Jackson, the B-52s, Pat Benatar and the Manhattan Transfer.

Scenic designer Paul Shortt and lighting designer Kirk Bookman placed the action in a neon-lit disco with sushi-bar overtones, complete with rice-paper curtains and colorful strobes. Some industrial metal shelf frames provided an ultra-minimalist set.

The real star of this show, though, was costume designer Eduardo Sicangco, whose outlandish, new wave kabuki costumes give "The Not Mikado" a real sense of spectacle.

Purists are probably grumbling that "The Not Mikado" messes with the great Gilbert and Sullivan cultural legacy, and they probably have a point. But it was still a most righteous romp.

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Zesty "Not Mikado" butchers pop culture,
Review from The Michigan Daily by Robert Yoon.

With the glamour of a rock concert and the glitz of a Las Vegas revue, the Birmingham Theatre presented Saturday night "The Not Mikado: A Hip-Hopperetta", a satirical and very funny musical loosely based on Gilbert and Sullivan's 1885 opera, "The Mikado". Conceived and directed by Worth Gardner, "The Not Mikado" provided zesty commentary on the complexity and absurdity of today's pop culture. It was very similar to the original "Mikado" in that both were stage productions performed by carbon-based life forms. The similarities generally ended there. Gardner took the original Gilbert and Sullivan storyline and infused it with more pop culture references than you'll find in both " Wayne's World" movies and a week's worth of "Entertainment Tonight". The setting was still Titipu, Japan, where the emperor - the Mikado - made flirting a crime punishable by death, but the characters, the sassy dialogue, and the variety of musical styles, ranging from country-western to calypso, had a distinctly '90s feel.

The story centered on Nanki-Poo (David Gunderman), a leather-clad, punk-rockin', Paulie Shore clone on roller blades. Complications arose, however, when his love interest, Yum-Yum (Courtenay Collins), became slated to be married to Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner (Kurt Johns). One of the musical highlights from Act 1 as "Behold the Lord High Executioner," where Ko-Ko sings merrily about the people he'd like to whack. Included in his list are Snoop Doggy Dog, Howard Stern, drama critics and Barney. As a Responsible Drama Critic, I have to say that it is a sad, sad day when actors must resort to making jokes about decapitating loveable, purple dinosaurs for a few cheap yucks. As a product of '70s and '80s popular culture, however, I say bring on the cleaver.

“The Not Mikado" could have succeeded on the quality of the dialogue and the lively dance numbers alone, but what made this a memorable show were the strong performances by the nine cast members. Particularly noteworthy were Kurt Johns, as the malaprop-prone Ko-Ko, whose New York accent was a mixture of a young Marlon Brando and a cranky Archie Bunker, and Howard Kaye, as the excessively stuffy Poo[h]-Bah. Equally entertaining but under-used were Wendy Perelman and Rebecca Hirsch, as the mall-talking duo, Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing. Not only did they take time out at the beginning of Act II to recap the events of Act I, but they also gave a complete update of Andrea's wedding on "90210", in case any of you missed that episode. Eduardo Sicangco's costume designs were the perfect mix of feudal Japan and Cindy Crawford's "House of Style". The street-talking, crotch-grabbing, CD-clad Mikado (David Earl Hart) wore 10-inch platform shoes and had a hairdo that would make Patti Labelle sit up and take notice. No description of the "Not Mikado" could top that of Pitti-Sing's at the end of the second act. "It's like when you go to the orthodontist and get your braces off and run your tongue across your teeth for the first time. Mmmm!"