Nobody Much Cares About Live Theatre, Either

[Innula Zenovka]

UK theatres promise to only cast trans actors in trans roles

Trans casting statement signatories pledge to cast trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming performers

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link because registration

 

[Khamon]

This seems highly, and unnecessarily, restrictive.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This seems highly, and unnecessarily, restrictive.

It's not the first time the issue has come up

Scarlett Johansson drops out of trans role after backlash

The actor has exited the fact-based drama Rub & Tug after the casting angered trans actors and activists

www.theguardian.com

Halle Berry Pulls Out of Transgender Film Role After Backlash

Halle Berry has pulled out of a role in an upcoming film in which she'd play a character who is transgender after facing backlash online.

variety.com

It's a complex issue that is always arising in various shapes and forms, and it's not one I've thought about particularly deeply in the specific context of trans actors, but as a general principle I think that the issue when a member of a dominant majority group -- whatever that group is -- plays a character whose being one of a particular, more or less oppressed or victimised, minority is important to that role, then what is being portrayed -- and it can hardly be anything else -- is how the character seems from the outside (how the minority looks to, and is interpreted by, the majority) rather than how the minority looks to itself.

At what point does it become caricature, and how can you tell if you're not a member of that minority?

I can imagine how I might feel or react under certain circumstances of which I have no first-hand knowledge and experience but, simply as a result of having been married for several years to one of Indian diaspora, I'm acutely aware of how many things I used to think I knew about India, Indians and Hinduism was a complete (and often ideological) misrepresentation of a far more complex reality, and I would imagine the same is at least as true for the experience of being trans.

 

[Khamon]

It's not caricature when the authour, director, actor, costumer, et al intentionally interact with members of the minority so that they can accurately portray some semblance of how a member of that minority may act in the circumstances being played. Professionalism is incumbent on them and they should be called out when their methods are sloppy and prejudiced. But even when it's respectful, a minority culture can be so diverse that nobody, even someone who identifies as foo, can ever play it to common satisfaction.

Fellow play goers argue this point ever so often. It doesn't wash. I won't advocate limiting a part to being played by someone who represents the character's [insert long list of attributes] in real life.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Possibly so, though I think that, in general, I'd rather see minority actors in minority roles whenever possible, partly to encourage diversity in the acting profession and partly because, if the character's being trans is important to the role, I'd be more interested to see the trans actor's interpretation of the role for their audience than that of the cis actor, and particularly in the live theatre.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

In Shakespeare's time, all women were played by men. A woman could not go to a theater and see a real woman on stage, only a man trying to portray a woman. Mind you the goal of acting at the time was not naturalism, but the effect was that an oppressed group was only visible through the interpretation of the dominant group. Some of those men may have been sympathetic to the female characters. They almost all knew at least some women. But imagine how it felt to only ever see a caricature of yourself on stage, no matter how well intentioned. The men on stage could go home and lead their lives free of the discrimination that pervaded their culture and that women could not escape.

That is the problem with casting straight cisgendered actors. No matter how empathetic they may seem, they are part of a society that is actively discriminating against queer, trans, and other marginalized groups. Groups who seldom if ever see themselves truly represented on stage or screen, and when they do usually only in niche productions. It is as harmful as blackface in that the practice of casting cisgendered actors in transgendered roles is another example of a dominant group blocking participation by the people who the role portrays. Individual performers may be well intentioned, but they are participating in systematic discrimination against marginalized communities.

 

[Free]

I played a tree in a Christmas pageant when I was 6.*

When only trees can play trees on stage, then I think we've become "unnecessarily" restrictive. Until then, I'm of a mind that there is no role so important it can't be cast as appropriately as possible.


* Reviews said my portrayal was sympathetic and honest, an interpretation that was innately true-to-life. Yet I still feel embarrassed whenever I walk past a pine tree.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I played a tree in a Christmas pageant when I was 6.*

When only trees can play trees on stage, then I think we've become "unnecessarily" restrictive. Until then, I'm of a mind that there is no role so important it can't be cast as appropriately as possible.


* Reviews said my portrayal was sympathetic and honest, an interpretation that was innately true-to-life. Yet I still feel embarrassed whenever I walk past a pine tree.

"Free's interpretation and performance were both very wooden."

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

It's not the first time the issue has come up

Scarlett Johansson drops out of trans role after backlash

The actor has exited the fact-based drama Rub & Tug after the casting angered trans actors and activists

www.theguardian.com

Halle Berry Pulls Out of Transgender Film Role After Backlash

Halle Berry has pulled out of a role in an upcoming film in which she'd play a character who is transgender after facing backlash online.

variety.com

Part of the problem with these two particular examples is that they are very pretty, FEMININE women who are supposed to play butch FtM roles. Casting an actual trans person is clearly best, but if you must cast a cis person, it's often better to consider casting the gender they identify as. I'm less familiar with Halle Berry's role, but in the case of Scarlett Johansson, it was really absurd. Patten Oswald would have been a much better choice with much better resemblance to the historical character than fucking Scarlett Johansson!

 

[Beebo Brink]

In an ideal world, any actor would be free to play any role. It's all make-believe, right? But in reality, an overwhelming number of ordinary roles -- that could be played by anyone at all -- don't go to minority actors. They only get cast for specific roles in which their minority-status is integral to the script.

When trans actors are just as likely to be cast in a cis-gendered role, when black actors are just as likely to be case in any role, when Asian actors are just as likely to be cast in any role, when women are just as likely to be cast in any role, THEN I'll stop favoring that only minorities play their own parts.

My favorite story of how this could work is from Alien. Ripley's character was originally written as a guy, but Weaver was cast without the script being changed to make it "a woman's role". And it was golden.

 

[Free]

"Free's interpretation and performance were both very wooden."

Reviewing something you never actually saw. Very postmodern.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Reviewing something you never actually saw. Very postmodern.

Even more so, since I was quoting a review that I had never read because it had never been written, as a result of the unfortunate death of the author, who walked out of the theatre and into oncoming traffic after they failed to notice an important sign, saying "Do Not Cross".

 

[Free]

Even more so, since I was quoting a review that I had never read because it had never been written, as a result of the unfortunate death of the author, who walked out of the theatre and into oncoming traffic after they failed to notice an important sign, saying "Do Not Cross".

This all goes to prove that the Simulation Argument is true.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Sir Ian McKellen: ‘What does old mean? Quite honestly I feel about 12’

It’s half a century since Sir Ian McKellen first played Hamlet. Now he’s starring as the Dane again – at 82. He talks about his extraordinary life, why he’ll never write his memoir – and his one lasting regret

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I must find the time to see this

Infinite thesp: Ian McKellen as Hamlet, 50 years apart – in pictures

Ian McKellen played Shakespeare’s tragic prince in 1971. Now, half a century later, he has returned to the role at Theatre Royal Windsor – one of the year’s hottest stage tickets

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link because why not

I saw his Macbeth in both London in the late 70s, and then again in Stratford, at The Other Place studio theatre, in the early 80s.

 

[Free]

 

[Free]

Stephen Sondheim, Composer of ‘Follies,’ ‘Sweeney Todd,’ Dies at 91

Stephen Sondheim, the dominant voice in American musical theater in the second half of the 20th century and composer has died. He was 91.

variety.com

Lin-Manuel Miranda honors Stephen Sondheim: 'We love you. I love you. THANK YOU.' - UPI.com

Lin-Manuel Miranda is paying tribute to his fellow Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist and songwriter Stephen Sondheim, who died Friday at the age of 91.

www.upi.com