It would have been totally acceptable with white actors. Hasn’t the playwright seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s?
OK, but what if I think there’s something really wrong with a play (or any work), and I want to publicize that, to persuade people to join me in my choice to reject it? No coercion, just free speech and market forces.
To what extent is a University expected to go in order to fill casting choices? I’m assuming the school intended to use students from their drama department.
The University can use the material for classwork, in class, with the class they have. But once you move on to public performance then the rights related to public performance kick in and, to use a term from a different campus debate, you need affirmative consent from the author who holds those rights (*).
(*so try again 70 years after he dies…)
In blackface? No. (And no “Yellowface” was proposed in this case.) But can a mixed school cast Whites and Asians in some of the parts that were envisioned as all Black when it was written and put on professionally? (And that we know are “supposed to be” actually Black Caribbean Islanders.) Why yes they can.
My kids’ High School put on a great production of Les Miz with colorblind casting (which is the standard at our school) and Jean Valjean being played by a Black student made no statement about race at all nor did it take anyone out of the story.
He clearly was just the best talent in the school for the part.
In any case your claim that this case of using White actors was avoiding “giving opportunity to actors of color” is just plain silly and untrue. If you want to change it to that a college should not put on a show with characters written as minorities unless they have adequate minority talent to cast those parts with minority actors (and I suspect simultaneously believing that casting any parts that are written as White characters with minorities is a-okay) then fine. Personally I think if the best actor in a school trying out for Hamlet is Black or Asian or White then that is who should get the part.
Yes we are at different ends of this discussion. I guess you’d not put on a production Aida unless you had enough Egyptians to fill the cast. I’d be comfortable with a small mixed population school with a small drama department (be it a college or a High School) even doing Porgy and Bess and using as many Whites as needed in traditionally Black roles. It is a classic of American Opera and theater. IMHO it should not be forbidden from a smaller college’s or High School’s dramatic canon because the character list is too Black for the school’s talent pool. These are not Broadway or Hollywood productions here. These are productions being put on as part of the educational process for those putting on the show, not trying to make a lot of money or win awards.
What recourse does the play write have if they went ahead with the play?
Getting off the topic of the thread, but Hollywood wouldn’t focus on white audiences because most of their audience isn’t white. They sell movies worldwide. If they continue to churn out mainly blockbusters featuring white actors and actresses, it may just be that they’ve figured out that’s what sells best.
Absolutely. I’ve never denied it.
Are you familiar with the play in question? Or my previous posts in this thread?
There are times when race doesn’t make a difference. There are times when it does. This was one of the times when it did.
This isn’t high school. This is a paid public performance and even if it is at the college level, especially when it’s at the college level, you need to take care of the messages you are sending.
I have been on the teaching side if this equation. I have been on the producer side of this equation, I have been on the director side of this equation. I haven’t been on the writer side but I feel like I can speak with a little bit of knowledge when I say that the fault lies with the director chosing a bad play for the school, failing to communicate with the necessary people, and generally screwing things up.
I thought that extreme analogues might make this easier to see, but maybe I was wrong. You are getting hung up on the details.
There are hundreds of thousands of plays, really really good plays. Almost all of them would have been totally appropriate. This wasn’t. It wasn’t horrible racism. It was casual and small. The people calling the playwright racist are akin to people who ask when we are going to get a white history month, but that’s sort of a side issue too. When you are putting on a show at a school you know what actors you have. Hell I would bet money that the director had the show half way cast before the first audition. Pick a show you can do with the actors you have.
Maybe he thought south Asian actors would try out? I don’t know. What would he have done if no one had auditioned at all?
Juliet was, of course, originally played by a boy. And all of Shakespeares gender-identity comedies are really fun and interesting productions when played with original-sex actors or even just gender-reversed actors.
Which is to agree that sex and gender are important in Shakespearing productions.
Personally, I’m a great fan of the music of Porgy and Bess, and although the casting requirements may or may not be incongruous, I’ve never felt offended.
It was not racism at all. It was copyright infringement - the university was intending to reproduce the playwright’s work without his permission - but it is not racist for a white person to want to participate in culture where they are not welcome because of their race.
No one needs to be told it. But BLACKFACE IS A FORM OF MAKEUP. It’s an extremely caricaturized way to make a black person that was historically used to treat black people like baffoons. This is blackface.
Blackface hasn’t been acceptable for years. At most, you may get someone who does it at Halloween. Everyone else gets it.
What sucks is that a lot of people are trying to misappropriate the term to mean something else. Now, I normally don’t care about what terms you use, but here it’s being used dishonestly. It’s taking something we all know is wrong, and connecting it with something else to borrow how wrong it is. It’s an attempt to use language as a replacement for an actual argument.
Blackface has absolutely nothing to do with what we are discussing here. There is one core question being asked. Is this playwright being racist to pull his play because two of the actors aren’t the correct race (clearly implying all the rest are)?
I say yes, because that parenthetical means none of the other arguments hold up. The argument the author himself uses is clearly incorrect. There were no people of color who were denied the ability to play roles. So his responsibility in that area is not relevant.
Nor have the other arguments any merit. There is no indication that any of the play was actually changed, so the faithfulness to the text is secured. There is no indication of offensive stereotyping or makeup being used. And the idea that it sends a racist message is obviously false because anyone can clearly see that the cast is not denying people of any race.
Yes, it’s only a little racism. But a little racism isn’t acceptable. And, no, it’s nothing like your appeal to wanting a white history month. This isn’t an attempt to run an all-white play in order to promote white culture.
The author’s actions are not helping out any people of color. That excuse does not fly. And since that was apparently the best he has, my conclusion is that he is indeed being racist.
He has a right to be racist in this situation, and pull his play. But that doesn’t make him any less racist. And even a little racism is not acceptable.
I don’t know why people keep calling the author a racist. His objection has more to do with the school’s violation of the terms of agreement. The school is the one fucking things up, but somehow the author is the bad guy in this situation? I’m not getting it (unless people just aren’t reading the article).
They don’t think he should have opinions on race and casting.
I didn’t know where to snip, so…
Are You familiar with the play in question? The article in the op said that there was no makeup and no accents. They were trying to be respectful. I get that blackface isn’t really the most appropriate analogy, but I really think that a lot of the reason why people don’t see a problem with it is because of the group who was being marginalized.
I’ll agree that it’s possible for the director to have been acting in good faith and that she wasn’t being racist and was instead sloppy, naive, and sort of a thief (appropriating someone’s play and making big changes like that isn’t really theft but I’m struggling to find the right word). I am also going to say that is she hadn’t turned this play into a musical without permission or had actually communicated with the author about it being a performance and not a classroom study it wouldn’t have been shut down.
But any time the news media or the Internet starts yelling about how minorities are oppressing white people you really need to step back and take a look at reality and context.
Twice you’ve asked this question … as if anyone who has not seen this off Broadway play is unqualified to comment on the circumstance.
It is “a contemporary take on the lost years of Jesus Christ. Teenaged and wayward, Jesus of Nazareth journeys to the East with his friend, Abigail of Galilee, toward a spiritual haven full of Maharajas, punk rock, and some really good weed.” The characters are Jesus, his not quite girlfriend Abigail, Sushil, a teen-ager they encounter on the way, and Mahari, Sushil’s slave girl.
No, I have not seen it. If you have you are among a relatively small group.
Not sure why you believe race makes such a difference for this particular play. It is just a silly fun what-if, “edgy” for its portrayal of Christ as a teen-ager who swears, has sex, and smokes weed, not a study in race relations. Race is not central to the play.
Suh has previously described this play as “universal” and has nowhere taken the position that race is key to the work or even a subject of the work.
Are you familiar with the play in question?
Not much debate that someone effed up and that Suh has every legal and ethical right to cancel the production based on the lack of proper consents having been given.
The issue is the fact that he would have allowed this student production (tickets free with student ID) if there were Indians cast in the roles, which was not an option for the Director, but blocked it because there were not. He wants his play to be used to promote parts for Indians and he’d rather it not be used in a circumstance in which it does not, cannot, do that.
Small colleges routinely colorblind and even often genderblind (changing the gender of roles) cast unless it is a show in which minority or gender status is a key subject of the work. Then they tread more carefully … usually. The talent bench though is usually not so deep.
No this is not about minorities oppressing white people and I see no one yelling that it is. This is about one person needlessly being a bit of a jerk based on race for the sake of race. No oppression involved. Please look at the reality and the context.
I disagree.
Sorry if you felt that I was trying to discredit you if you weren’t familiar with the play. If you are not familiar with the play though, why would you not take the playwright at his word that it subverts the meaning of the play?
Yes, many colleges engage in color blind casting. Some times that’s very appropriate. I’m not saying this isn’t a bit grey, but follow me here,because if you don’t know this actual play we HAVE to speak in analogy. You asked earlier if I would be ok with minorities playing white character. Sometimes. Would you say that To Kill Mockingbird would be the same if Atticus was played by an African American? Sometimes it matters.
If you don’t know, why do you default to it being ok?
Well, I wouldn’t put words in people’s mouths. I think he’s foolish for having a prohibition on race rather than a preference, and probably more foolish for enforcing it on a non-profit production: but it’s his play. People have all kinds of artistic standards I don’t agree with. If I find I’m working with someone who’s incompatible, I find someone else to work with.
The director is an idiot for not securing rights to produce before he started rehearsal, though. The writer’s conditions were pretty clear, and as observed before, there are many plays he could have chosen instead. The director’s the bad guy here for wasting everyone’s time.
That’s a great example of managing a production in a manner I agree with. All-white productions were allowed to be put on by local theaters in Europe, even in Nazi Germany. Demanding that they somehow find qualified performers of the appropriate skin color in fairly lily white Europe would be unreasonable. But Ira Gershwin didn’t allow all-white productions in South Africa.
Plus, it’s reputation and acceptance by both the African-American and wider American population has moved back and forth during its existence. It’s kind of a microcosm of race and art in the US.
The conversation I mentioned earlier with my theater major friend took place because we were attending a women’s college and I’d asked why the theater department went to the extra trouble of casting outside actors (usually from nearby schools or community theater, but in one case bringing in a professional from NYC) for male roles instead of just having our own students play the parts in drag. As I learned from my friend, for many contemporary works the performance license does not allow for this.
Our theater department did put on an all-female production of one of Shakespeare’s comedies when I was a student there, but Shakespeare is public domain so licensing issues would not apply. They also did some shows written for an all-female cast, although there apparently aren’t a whole lot of those. Otherwise if the play had male roles then they managed to get male actors, even though none of our own students fit the bill.