After reading and talking and listening during our week of race-related readings, I've decided that coalitional casting is a pipe-dream, a false-positive that people use to rationalize a desire to produce a show that they cannot cast appropriately. Yes, I want to be an ally to those that are marginalized and pushed to the fringes of artistic opportunity; yes, I want the stories of all colors and cultures to be told; yes, I believe this is possible without betraying the artistic vision and purpose of the writer.
When I was in undergrad we had a phenomenal setup for the student theatre. It was a black box space entirely produced, directed, acted, designed, and built by the students. We would do 4-5 shows a semester in this space, everything from Chekhov to Eric Bogosian. The value in this was that there were so many ways to get involved as a young actor/artist. I believed, and still believe, that the place to really learn your craft is not in a classroom but in an actual theater. In the trenches, with your peers, doing the work and making it happen. However, an environment that provides so many opportunities also allows for some misguided productions.
My sophomore year one of the seniors decided he wanted to direct Statements After An Arrest Under the Immorality Act, by Athol Fugard. An important piece of South African apartheid drama. The play, written in 1972, deals with the relationship between a white, female librarian, and a married black man. The Immorality Act in South Africa made such a relationship illegal. The play opens with the couple having just finished having sex, and the two actors are required to be naked for much of the play. It is a beautiful piece of writing, and I remember vividly the two undergrad actors cast in the leading roles. The two white undergrad actors cast in the leading roles. The production became all about the bravery of the two actors willing to appear naked in a student play, so much so that there was very little talk of the fact that by making them both white the play has almost no purpose. I'm embarrassed to admit that the full weight of what they had done didn't hit me until many years later. How did faculty let this happen??? Did no one question the student director? Did no one call him to account for his decision to whitewash a play that is entirely dependent on the color of its actors? Did it really not matter because...Harrisonburg, Virginia, 1997, ya'll? I don't know. But I feel that at best it was a tremendously missed opportunity to tell a beautiful story in a town that maybe needed to hear it, and didn't. And as responsible artists, I feel it's our job to not take the easy way out. Coalitional casting feels like the easy way out, arguing that education of some kind is better than no education at all. But not if that education is misleading and misguided. If you want to do a show that you don't have the actors for, pick another show. If you still want to do that show, figure out what's missing from your program that is keeping you from accurately being able to cast that show, and try and fix that problem. Do anything but say, "Oh, well. I'll just use the 'best actor' for the job, and at least the story will get told." The story will get told, but it won't be the same story the playwright intended. And that does a disservice to all involved. Educational theater should aspire to the standards of professional theater. Coalitional casting feels a little like giving Little League baseball players an extra out because they are children. Sure, it makes it easier and everybody gets to play, but doesn't it do them a disservice when they grow up and realize they in fact only get three outs? We should be training responsible actor/artists who are allies in the fight for gender and racial parity. And if that means some of us have to learn that there are roles we are not appropriate for, then so be it.
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Hear, hear.
ReplyDeleteThe task of inclusion is one of changing the game itself that we play. Perhaps, as you say, “that means some of us have to learn that there are roles we are not appropriate for…” There will be certain moments of crestfallenness for those of us that live with the advantage of privilege...but really, anything else that doesn’t invite an element of general leveling (and, given the finite nature of the universe, that will mean less goodies for all around, with the biggest shock coming for the ones presently in the catbird seat) is just so much lip service: “Yes, we really must dismantle the exclusionary machine works of the status quo...just so long as I get to play Hamlet, Biff Loman, and the other white, hetero guy in that other show, etc…)”.
It really is a question of evolving the way we approach the work all the way up and down the line. To quote one well intentioned but often blindly flailing scholar, “Production can’t diversify without plays that reflect diversity. Publicity can’t sell a show that’s not consistent with the market’s demands. Casting won’t stick their neck out in the name of inclusion without educational arm of the machine adequately preparing its candidates. And remember those season ticket subscribers? Well, they got a finger in each of these cupcakes…”
The expression “laying the groundwork” comes to mind: it’s a long ways off from the more rewarding steps in the process like painting the front door a bright red, and it yields little in the way of gratification, but without it there no house to throw that party. Why should marginalized groups want to join a game that has done nothing for them? So far, it’s a game whose engagement has consisted largely in underlining the disparity in influence and agency in order to sustain its own prominence. So what does laying the groundwork look like? Here’s where I’m showing my stripes as one of the many forward thinking but ultimately ineffectual privileged ones: we could start with the idea that we’d need to convince the “others” that this game is worth the risk, worth the effort, worth the sacrifice...but I couldn’t say exactly how. It’s not nothing though it’s pretty damn close nothing...but is that a start?