When three of the world’s most prestigious Shakespeare companies staged “Richard III” this summer, each took a different approach and revealed a fierce debate about which actor should play which role. , Cast the title character of that conspiracy.
Richard was played by actor Arthur Hughes at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Arthur Hughes has radial dysplasia. That is, his right arm is short and his thumb is missing. The company said it was the first time it had cast a disabled actor to play a character who described himself as “transformed” in the opening scene.Production director Gregory Doran, who until recently was the artistic director of Royal Shakespeare, said The Times of London Earlier this year, pretending that an actor couldn’t play “Richard III” would be “probably unacceptable” these days.
The Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, worked in a different way. Casting Colm Feore without disabilities, he played Richard with a deformed spine but no kyphosis. And in New York City, the free Shakespeare in the public theater in the park went in yet another direction, casting Danai Gurira, an unimpaired black woman, as the Duke who planned and killed her way to the throne of England.
Their different approaches took place at the moment when a fierce rethinking of cultural norms about identity, expression, diversity, opportunity, imagination and artistic acceptance led to a heated debate and battle over the cast.
Decades have passed since a white actor played Othello in a major theater with a black face, and after many years of criticism, the performance of a white actor who plays the Asian role of nigao-e has become rare in theaters and movies, and in opera and ballet. It is being reconsidered.
Now I have a question about who should play a gay character (Tom Hanks has recently been cast in New York Times Magazine as a gay lawyer who dies of AIDS because he played an Academy Award-winning role today. I said it would be the 1993 movie “Philadelphia”) or a transgender character (Eddie Redmayne) Said Last year, it was a “mistake” to play a trans character or a character of various ethnicities or religions in “The Danish Girl” in 2015. (Bradley Cooper faced Criticism This year, for playing the Jewish conductor Leonard Bernstein with his prosthesis in his next biography. )
Many celebrate the departure from old, sometimes stereotypical depictions, and the new opportunities that actors of various backgrounds are given late, while others are too confident in their current claims of literal credibility. I’m worried that it can be constrained. After all, acting is the art of impersonating someone you aren’t.
“The essence of art is free,” said Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham. Many of his achievements include Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” Jewish money lender, Shylock, but Abraham is not Jewish. “When we impose some control on it, it’s no longer free.”
And recent claims for more serious casting promise greater diversity in some respects, but less threatening in others. As many women and color actors have more opportunities to play the greatest and fleshy roles in the repertoire, playwrights first envisioned race, gender, and background.
Such casting may be considered “color blindness”. In that case, the audience is asked to look beyond the actor’s race, ethnicity, or other characteristics. However, in recent years, the race, ethnicity, and identity of actors have become part of the production, and there is a tendency towards “color-aware” castings that characterize the characters.
Some of the different approaches were highlighted by the production of “Richard III” this summer and the different directions each theater took when choosing an actor to play Richard.
Richard told the audience in the opening scene that he said:
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Only half of this breathing world is made up
And it’s not very lazy and fashionable
The dog barks at me when I stop by them
Doran, director of production at the Royal Shakespeare Company, made a fuss about the theater world by saying that it would be “probably unacceptable” for an actor to pretend he couldn’t play Richard.
Not only is Doran a famous Shakespeare, but his husband, Antony Sher, who died last year, used crutches in his acclaimed work in 1984 and wrote a book about his portrayal, the most memorable in decades. He was one of the remaining Richards.
Critics praised his production at Stratford-upon-Avon, who later revealed his thoughts on the casting, and although any actor may be a successful Richard, he said they were “total.” Opportunities are now more widely given to other parties. “
A new staging featuring Feore in Stratford, Ontario included a “disability consultant” in his credits. His portrayal was inspired by the discovery of Richard’s bones almost a decade ago — the skeleton suggested a form of scoliosis — and his physique was ” Medical disorders “It’s more than social and cultural,” said Ann Sewardferger, a spokeswoman for the company, in an email. Critic Karen Fricker wrote to the Toronto Star: Important conversations that are happening now About the performance of deafness and disability. “
And in New York, Grilla, who starred in “Black Panther” and the television series The Walking Dead, sought to find the root cause of Richard’s actions. “There are psychological reasons for what happens to him,” she said in an interview. “He is looking at the rules in front of him and he feels he is the most capable, but the rules prohibit him from exerting his full potential.”
Production director Robert O’Hara said they made Richard’s difference the key to their interpretation. “Richard’s otherness is the perfect reason for his actions,” he said in an interview. “He now feels like people have to play the role projected on him.”
The rest of the production cast, which finished its run earlier this month, was particularly diverse and included some actors with disabilities in roles that wouldn’t normally be cast that way. Wheelchair-using Tony Award-winning actress Ali Stroker played Lady Une. Deaf Monique Holt played Richard’s mother. The two usually communicate on stage via American Sign Language.
“I wanted to start the conversation with’Why can’t Richard be played by an actor with a disability?'” Why can’t you think that all roles can be played by an actor with a disability? ” Mr. O’Hara said.
Ayana Thompson, Professor of English at Arizona State University And Shakespeare’s scholars living in public theater consulted about that “Richard III,” and the growing acceptance of color-conscious casting is how different attributes affect both the actor’s identity and the perception of the audience. He claimed to reflect a modern understanding of what to do.
“Everything in our body has meaning on stage, whether we want to admit it or not, and it will affect storytelling,” Thompson said.
She pointed out another play example. Hamlet’s friends Rosencrantz and Guilden Stern are often confused with other characters. “When Rosencrantz and Guilden Stern are played by black actors and Hamlet’s family is pure white, the indistinguishability has many implications,” she said.
Many works overturn traditional castings to cross-examine the classics. The woman played every role in the acclaimed Shakespeare trilogy directed by Phyllida Lloyd at the Donmar Warehouse in London, found at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York. “Julius CaesarDirected by Mr. Doran, “reset the scene from ancient Rome to modern Africa. Even Hollywood has rethought some blockbusters, such as the 2016 Gender Swapped Ghostbusters.
However, as some regions require more freedom in casting, others demand more literal principles, especially from actors with specific backgrounds who lack opportunities. increase.
Some disabled actors are upset to see Richard III, one of Canon’s juicy disabled characters, go to someone else. “We all want an equal arena where everyone can play,” said Matt Fraser, a British actor who played Richard with a disability.
Jeffrey Tambor, who won an Emmy Award for transgender character in 2016, said he wanted to be “the last cisgender man to play a transgender woman.” A “transgender” stage musical is currently being created in Los Angeles, and its creator, Joe Soloway, vowed in an interview: Zero tolerance. “
Conversations about casting have evolved in recent years.
“In the past, part of the measure of greatness was the ability to change ourselves,” said the author of the new history of method acting, “Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Behave.” Isaac Butler says. “Is diversity still a feature of good acting? And if there are specific identity lines that cannot be crossed, how do you approach them? And which are those identity lines?”
Cerebral palsy actor Gregg Mozgala played a role traditionally not portrayed as a disabled person, as he played two monarchs in New York’s “Richard III.” In the Broadway production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Cost of Living”.
“I spent years pretending that my disability didn’t exist in my life or on the stage, because it’s ridiculous,” said Mozgara.
“All the characters I’ve ever played will have cerebral palsy — there’s nothing I can do about it,” he added. “I have to bring full humanity to every character I play.”
Some people want a day when their identities recede in conversation.
“I hope a white actor can play Othello 100 years later,” said Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the public theater. “Sure, that means that racism wasn’t an explosive problem right now.”
