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Dear Editor,
    I was in Austin last weekend, read Rosalind Faires' article "If You Want to Know Who We Are" [Arts & Culture] in your issue of Feb. 12, and subsequently saw The Mikado: Reclaimed because I am a longtime fan of The Mikado and also of avant-garde theatre (I run an original-theatre company in New York).
    I thoroughly enjoyed the play. I found the use of the Mikado songs quite effective, the story powerful, and the performances uniformly strong and emotionally true. I did not, however, find in it much connection to the play described in Ms. Faires' article.
    This is in no sense an adaptation of The Mikado, as she writes. There's not a word of the opera's dialogue in the play, and the songs are used in entirely different contexts by characters unrelated to those in the opera. The plot has no overlap whatever with that of the opera. Other than the appropriated songs, the opera and the play have absolutely nothing in common.
    I was also struck by the fact that a company offended by the appropriation of Japanese culture to address English concerns in The Mikado had previously done a show which appropriated Robin Hood, "the titular figure from British folklore," to address American concerns. I didn't see that show, but it didn't sound as if many British people were involved.