ColumnsThe RSC, a company that has recently done more for cross-cultural casting and expanding opportunities to ethnic minorities in major roles than just about any in the country, is currently being hauled over the Guardian multi-cultural coals by one commentator Anna Chen.
She has noticed that its imminent production of The Orphan of Zao (beginning performances in Stratford next Tuesday)
may be the first Chinese play, to make it to the hallowed RSC, but the only parts given to actors of east Asian heritage are two dogs. And a maid-servant. Who dies. Tragically.
She conscripts East Asian playwright David Henry Hwang in the argument, who says,
By producing The Orphan of Zhao, the RSC seeks to exploit the public’s growing interest in China; through its casting choices, the company reveals that its commitment to Asia is self-serving, and only skin-deep.
But what both Chen and Hwang fail to mention is that the RSC is an ensemble company – and this production is part of a season of plays that they are performing. Would it be better not to do the play at all? Three East Asian company members in this context seems quite generous. By contrast, its current production of Much Ado About Nothing in the West End (where it ends its run tomorrow) is cast entirely with Asian actors – just as its last production Julius Caesar there was cast entirely with black actors. Neither of those played called for it, of course, and perhaps white actors should feel aggrieved at being denied the opportunity to be considered for them.
Instead of being colour-blind, the RSC were boldly race specific there; but elsewhere they adhere rigorously, as most theatres do now, to colour-blind casting. Surely The Orpan of Zhao falls into that category. They didn’t set out to produce an all-East Asian production, so shouldn’t be criticised for failing to deliver one.
When race does matter
There are more black-and-white positions (so to speak) where race is implicit in the story of the play, as it is in Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park. A Berlin theatre was recently about to stage it, when the playwright discovered, to his evident horror, that the theatre were going to have a white actress cast as a black character, and withdrew its rights to present his play.
The theatre told him, in the course of negotiations between them that he said was full of “evasion, justification and rationalizing of their reasons”, that “the color of the actress’s skin would ultimately be irrelevant, since they intended to ‘experiment with make-up’.”
That raised alarm bells for him that they intended to use ‘blackface’ and black up the actress accordingly. Norris points out,
Blackface has been and continues to be a widespread practice on the German stage. German actors of African descent are routinely passed over for roles explicitly designated for them in some of the largest theatres in the country.
As Mark Lawson has pointed out in a Guardian piece this week,
You might think that such a trick should be unthinkable in a nation with the historical racial sensitivities of Germany – and, indeed, it would be unthinkable in Britain and America, at least in straight theatre (It is still common in opera, where Verdi’s Otello is frequently sung by white tenors – perhaps because operatic drama continues to be regarded as a more artificial form.)
The Stage has been conducting a poll this week that closed yesterday, enquiring if people think blackface is an acceptable practice. The majority think it no longer is, though a surprising third don’t mind. So there’s obviously some way to go in moving on from past practice.
There’s a touching moment at the end of the Tricycle’s Red Velvet, about the 19th century black American classical actor Ira Aldridge, where he ‘whites up’ to play King Lear. But it is always a fraught area. By the same token, it seemed simply absurd earlier this summer when the Regent’s Park production of Ragtime cast a black man as the grandfather of an American WASP family – especially when he was called to sing the line about the community he was part of: “And there were no negroes”. But then this was a production that seemed to throw gender out of the window, too, casting T Booker Washington (a real-life figure) as a black woman. The production made a nonsense of the show’s own depiction of the divisiveness of race.
Review of the week
Edward Seckerson, former chief classic music critic for The Independent who now writes brilliantly on his personal blog, on the Young Vic’s Three Sisters, directed by Benedict Andrews:
Three of the best things I have seen in the theatre over the last couple of years have been directed by the same man – Benedict Andrews. The ENO/Young Vic’s extraordinary The Return of Ulysses, the Sydney Theatre Company’s Big and Small and now, back at the Young Vic, his own version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters…
Andrews has whipped it into the here and now with some startlingly current musical references and, of course, a passionate range of expletives while still maintaining absolute fidelity to the spirit and in most cases the letter of the text and still placing us in this enclosed, stifling, inner world where what is happening outside – as in the sounds that reach us from outside: the hyperactivity of a military garrison, bands, gunshots, and so on – seems so remote. The sisters, we know, will never reach Moscow – not on account of practical, physical, considerations, but rather an all-pervasive apathy forced upon them by the nature of the society in which they find themselves.
It’s a startling play and this is a startling production. You start by wondering how so much space can suggest not freedom but total claustrophobia. It can and does.
Quote of the week
Playwright Lucy Kirkwood, whose new play NSFW opens at the Royal Court next Wednesday (November 31), on her ongoing feelings about one of the reviews her earlier play Tinderbox received:
There is one review of Tinderbox that still makes me very upset and if I wasn’t such a stubborn old cow I may have just given up and stopped writing at that point. I just felt this terrible vitriol behind the words. I was so young and it was awful. I think it must be how people feel when they get to Oxford and they realise everyone is much cleverer than they are. Suddenly you are faced with this panic and doubt.
Jobs & Auditions
Comments 15 comments
This comment on the Orphan of Zhao casting also misses out that East Asians who have been speaking out about this issue are not saying the show should have been cast with a full East Asian cast but are disappointed at the choices made in casting the show and the other two plays in repertory. The roles that have been given to the East Asians are extremely minor, and it appears from the casting of the other two repertory plays, that their participation is also minimal. So, either the RSC has deemed none of the East Asian acting community good enough to play a leading or even substantial supporting role in all three plays, or they can’t countenance the thought of having East Asian actors playing lead parts in a Russian or Italian play.
The RSC’s statement said that when casting the show they wanted to “cast the best actor for the part”. This statement throws up a lot of issues. In the context of this show, if you look at the Spotlight CV of one of the actors playing the puppet demon mastiff, puppetry is not listed as one of his skills. So, does that make him the ‘best actor for the part’? I think the answer is No. So, why was he cast? Tokenism is the answer that springs to mind.
Next, what determines who is ‘best’ for the role? All of the actors playing the leading and main supporting roles have substantial experience and in many cases have worked with the RSC before. This brings us to the larger issue at hand, and is the main reason for the East Asian actor community speaking out. The fact is that East Asian actors do not have the opportunity to build up a CV of any note. From my experience as a Chinese actor and having heard the many stories that have arisen from this debate, the themes are recurring – majority of castings being for stereotyped roles like Chinese takeaway owner, illegal immigrant, maid, prostitute, triad member etc requiring some kind of Chinese, Japanese or other cod accent, rarely being seen for any non-race-specific parts and classical roles and being told by directors and casting directors and agents and drama schools that you aren’t going to get much work because you are East Asian, directors apologise before asking us to put on an accent but then they do it anyway. East Asians have historically not enjoyed anything like a level playing field when it comes to being cast in productions where race is not any issue. The situation for East Asians actors is that their presence is almost unfelt in the performing arts and entertainment industries.
It’s true – the acting industry is hard and many, many actors just don’t get the breaks. Other ethnic minorities also have the added difficulty of perceptions due to race and yet in the last 50 years, opportunities have grown for the black and South Asian acting communities in Britain after they fought hard to be heard. The RSC has played its part in that and much kudos to them for putting on an all-black Julius Caesar and all-Asian Much Ado About Nothing amidst some criticism of discrimination. But the playing field is severely tilted when it comes to East Asian actors. The RSC has cast a very few East Actors in its history – no more than 3 or 4 in the last 20 years, and only one in the main company. The Orphan of Zhao, which is a great Chinese classic, represented an opportunity to East Asian actors to be part of this and feel they might be major participants in telling this story and being able to do it with one of the best theatre companies in the world. We are British after all, and the RSC has had my respect and admiration every since I was at school for the work they do. It makes it even more painful that (perhaps unwittingly) they were not able to foresee the extreme hurt and disappointment that their choices have caused. Let’s make it plain – East Asians aren’t known for speaking out or causing a fuss against the establishment. It has taken a lot for us to rally together and say that we are not happy, and not willing to put up with the status quo. I still question that I am doing it now every day but if it means better understanding of and a reduction of discrimination against British East Asians, not just in theatre but in the community at large, then the time has come for us to speak out.Report comment
I could not agree more with what Michelle Lee has just written. Let’s be clear this is not really about the casting choices of The Orphan of Zhao at the RSC though it has shunted the disgraceful inequality shown to the British East Asians in comparison to our UK ethnic minorities. Those that would say it it not the same I ask, why, why is it not the same? It is in essence exactly what both the Black Afro-Caribean and South Asian communities have fought hard for and in some senses won. Equality we are not asking for the moon. We are not asking for any more than that which is already afforded to other UK minorities. On the one hand Blacking up would now not be countenanced. Yet Yellow Face apparently is a) not the same and b) well who’s going to complain? Level the playing field but we also have to be allowed onto the dam playing field as wellReport comment
I agree with the two previous comments.
I believe the author of this article is being disingenuous; hoping to generate traffic by inferring with his “When Race Does Matter” sub-title that race doesn’t matter when it applies to East Asians in a rep situation in the opening paragraph.
Put it this way. The RSC is about to stage a play from Africa, the characters are from Africa. The RSC take a research trip to Africa, for a week. They come back and cast all the lead characters with Caucasians and cast a minor role of a servant and some puppet operators of a dog with Black actors.
What does this say to all the Black tourists? What does this say to all the Black children who watch this play? How does this progress the state of theatre?
Why is this acceptable to supposedly inclusive, liberal thinkers when the words Black are changed to East Asian?
It’s shameful. And shameful that you think it can be justified with theatre administration concerns.
Even if this were inReport comment
Mark Shenton,
With the very greatest of respect you’re talking hogwash.
Anna has not “conscripted” David Henry Hwang into the argument at all. Rather, people of East Asian heritage from all over the globe are furious at what is a blatant denial of opportunities for the mostt marginalised, ignored and pigeon holed minority group in British theatre.
Your arguments are appallingly weak. First you attempt to assert that three out of seventeen (and none in a leading role) is “generous” (don’t want these little orientals getting ahead of themselves, eh?) then you blithely insist that in repertoire we couldn’t have expected an “entirely East Asian” cast. No one has demanded this but rather a PROPERLY diverse and multi cultural approach that would’ve seen East Asian talent (and it does exist, believe me) taking two or three of the protagonist roles.
The simple fact is that this situation would never be tolerated were it black African characters being portrayed by caucasian actors and there exists a clear equality short fall. To argue that this is “colour blind casting” is highly disingenuous. Colour blind casting was intended to give opportunities to minorities NOT protect privileged majorities.Report comment
Mark – I respect you greatly as a theatre commentator but as Michelle points out entirely reasonably, you have missed the key points raised by the Orphan of Zhao. It is about opportunity, and for East Asian actors any opportunity at the top institutions is extremely hard – if not neigh on impossible – to come by. There is plenty of quality talent now and there can’t be excuses any more, there really can’t. When a Chinese play comes along with great meaty parts in it and the East Asian community faces systematic under-representation, if not discrimination, then the thought is naturally ‘aha, maybe a chance to work on something really good.’ But no. You know how RSC casting works as well as anyone. It isn’t that they saw the entire East Asian acting community – it isn’t that there were a string of auditions. There are ‘meetings’ based on track record. If you are constantly denied opportunities because not everywhere really practices (mythic?) colour blind casting, then you can be a great actor but not have the track record required. The RSC system is a bit idealistic rather than realistic.
The casting of three plays together points up the inequalities in the industry. The three East Asian actors in the production are in pretty minor roles really (and I’m afraid that the stereotype of the Asian woman dying is there and if people aren’t sensitive to that by now, they should be), and they seem to have small parts in the other two plays. From the outside, to a LOT of people that looks like tokenistic representation. Because why are they there, in those particular roles otherwise? What makes them qualified for those specific parts? Are East Asian actors really only good enough for puppetry operations? Other BME actors in this production have minor roles too it’s worth highlighting.
The RSC has made great strides, no-one disputes that, but this was a missed opportunity. Personally I don’t really like all-black or all-Asian castings of classics unless they point up something about the play. They exist because major institutions like to feel that they are filling their diversity remit every now and again. However, I did see the all-black Julius Caesar and some of the people in it were phenomenal (and to my mind, not everyone who had RSC track record in it necessarily was) but the whole production was overwritten by all sorts of stereotypes around what we consider ‘Africa’ to be. These things have to be so carefully thought through. What I’d like to see instead are more diverse faces in the lead parts generally. There are East Asians out there good enough for those roles – as good as any white or black or South Asian actors. One of the great things about someone like David Henry Hwang or many of the leading Asian American writers, directors and actors is that when you talk to them you realise that they were all given a chance by someone – and usually someone at a top institution or production company. And you need those chances to develop artistically. But if you are East Asian in this country, that just doesn’t happen.Report comment
Never mind what Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang allegedly fails to mention, lazy journalist Mark Shenton fails to mention the context of the outrage, which is the FACT that the RSC has failed to cast a SINGLE UK Chinese actor on the main stage in Stratford for over TWENTY YEARS! When you do that, and then cast the first race specifically Chinese leading part with a non-Chinese actor, you deserve to get international opprobrium, which is what this story is actually all about.
How dare Shenton misappropriate the story and our position? It underlines the real bottom line, which is that the Chinese/East Asian in UK is under-represented in all walks of life, and as a consequence under-respected and under valued, in this case by Shenton. That he states “Three East Asian company members in this context seems quite generous” is quite incredible and I hope the time comes soon, that this ignorant statement(which only serves to further undermine Chinese and East Asians in UK and reinforce the status quo) comes back to haunt him and he regrets it professionally and personally. Shame on you. That a journalist like Shenton’s feels empowered to make such statements, says everything about the fight we are engaged with, not only at the RSC, who with the exception of East Asians and Chinese has a commendable record as we all acknowledge, but the entire UK society in general.
It may ironically be the RSC’s relatively good record on equality that has ultimately led to this outpouring of sentiment, in fact. If our flagship Theatre company cant do better than this, then what hope have we got? What have we got to lose by speaking out for the first time?
My hope is that anyone making ignorant selective comments such as these, will be ridiculed in future, by an new breed of Chinese activists. We are 35 years behind our black colleagues, but lets take a leaf out of their book and beat down indirect racism at our expense. NO MORE YELLOWFACE. NO MORE YELLOWFACE APOLOGISTS. A disgraceful and lazy article. Editors and owners of The Stage, you must be able to do better than this?Report comment
I would also add that Mark Lawson was, surprisingly, wrong in his observation re Verdi’s Otello. It is often sung by a white tenor blacked up because operatic roles are very voice specific (what the Germans call ‘fach’). A Mozartian tenor cannot hope to sing this particular role and, as it happens, there doesn’t seem to be many black tenors with the fach required to sing Otello. In fact, if anything, opera has been far more colour blind for far longer than theatre. For example there are black Sophies in Der Rosenkavalier (with a white father Faninal) and many opera companies are enthnically diverse. So to go back to the case of Otello, it is a case of ‘the best man for the job’, and in this particular case, the best man often happens to be white.Report comment
Thank you all for your valuable contributions and insights to what is a far from cut-and-dried but clearly emotive subject that one blog – let alone one production – cannot address in its entirety.
I totally respect Michelle Lee’s well-argued case for (lack of) opportunities that East Asian actors get, and of course the fact that without being given that opportunity, they will not gain the experience to grow. So thank you for providing that context and understanding.
But I must ask where it has ever been stated, by me or the RSC, that they are pursuing a yellow face approach to the production. It hasn’t opened yet, so we’ve not seen how exactly the actors will represent their origins. I very much doubt, though I may be wrong, that the production will be so culturally insensitive to have Caucasian (or black) actors representing Asians changing their appearance with make-up.
If it is being insisted, however, that only East Asians play East Asians, do we turn back the clock on multicultural casting so that East Asian actors can also not be allowed to play anyone else? I’m sure those commentators can’t be asking for that, yet their insistence on it can only lead to it.Report comment
Dear Mark:
The issue here is one of invisibility. If you consider the casting to be “generous” to East Asians it is because you do not consider them to be British. They – two centuries of British East Asian communities – are invisible to you.
Add to this a generous sprinkling of white entitlement/white appropriation/white supremacy at RSC and we have the debacle that we have. And you are a “theatre critic”? Well, that just means that you’re part of the problem that is racism in British society in general and British theatre in particular.
Victor Wong
Toronto, CanadaReport comment
Mark:
This is emotive because racism is emotive. You can read through the 500 comments on two threads at the RSC FB site.
Multicultural casting in the UK in reality is exclusionary/discretionary casting as experienced by BEA actors yet a vast talent pool exists (see partial list below). They have had to fight additional barriers of invisibility and racism to be recognized and included. Why should this be tolerated? The entire theatre industry needs to own this or be rightly condemned for it.
Victor Wong
from: Rosa Fong and freeloader2012
I wonder which 6 BEA actors out of the following you [RSC] called for audition?
BENEDICT WONG (little film called Prometheus. No? How about Sunshine, by Danny Boyle)
BURT KWOUK (getting a bit too old for these shenanigans now, Pink Panther, Last of Summer Wine)
GEMMA CHAN (Fresh Meat, that dreadful ep of Sherlock, Bedlum, Secret Diary of a Call Girl),
KATIE LEUNG (Harry Potter, Wild Swans, Run)
SOPHIE WU (The Fades, Fresh Meat)
CHRISTINA CHONG (Monroe, Whitechapel)
JAY WONG (Missing, opposite Ashley Judd)
JING LUSI (Holby City, Jack Falls)
TOM WU (Treasure Island, Scorpion King),
JESSICA HENWICK (The Thick Of It, Spirit Warriors)
PIK SEN LIM (Plenty, The Ruby in the Smoke)
LOBO CHAN (King Kong, The Broken)
TOGO IGAWA (Memoirs of a Geisha, The Last Samurai, Jonny English Reborn)
ANDREW LEUNG (Dirk Gently, Phoneshop)
HARUKA ABE (Ideal, 47 Ronin)
HARUKA KURODA (Ideal, Total War SHogun)
KLARIZA CLAYTON (Skins, Shelfstackers, Dani’s House)
KAE ALEXANDER (Bad Education)
DAVID TSE (Wolfblood, Spooks)
JAMIE CHO (Law & Order)
IRENE NG (The Jury)
PETER PERALTA (Genie in the House)
STEPHEN HOO (just did ‘Takeaway’ at the Stratford East)
ELIZABETH TAN (Doctor Who, Coronation Street)
CRYSTAL YU (Casualty, Shanghai)
MATT CHO (The Eagle Path)
SELINA LO (Scorpion King, Prince & Me)
MEGAN AFFONSO (Whitechapel)
SAND LUI (Silent Witness)
OLIVER BILES (House of Anubis)
HON PING TAN (Ideal, Shanghai)
MO ZINAL (10,000BC)
ANDREA LING (Babies at Southwark Playhouse)
CHRISTOPHER GOH (Spooks)
CALITA RAINFORD (Iron Cross)
GABBY WONG (After the Wold Ended)
JAMIE ZUBAIRI (Holby City)
MICHELLE LEE (The Bill, Hummingbird)
YVONNE WAN (Heather)
BO MOLLOY (Ashes to Ashes)
ANDREW KOJI (Fast and the Furious gazillion)
CHINA CHOW (Burn Notice)
JON FOO (StreetFighter, Tekken)
GEORGE YOUNG (Casualty, The Pupil)
MONA HAMMOND (Death in Paradise)
MAX MINGHELLA (Agora, The Social Network)
ELAINE TAN (Entourage, Eastenders)
TONY TANG (Snatch)
DAVID YIP (The Chinese Detective, Oscar Charlie)
OZZIE YUE (White Van Man)
TOMOKO KOMURA (47 Ronin)
YAO CHIN (Dalziel and Pascoe)
TANROH ISHIDA (The Railway Man, Gambit)
YENNIS CHEUNG (Skyfall)
ORION LEE (Silent Witness)
TING TING HU (Hotel Babylon)
VEE VIMOLMAN (Doctors, Married Single Other)
JENNIFER LIM (Hostel)
DANIEL YORK (The Beach, Waking the Dead)
DEREK SIOW (Piercing Brightness)
JUNICHI KAJIOKA (After the World Ended)
YOU-RI YAMANAKA (Silent Witness)
CHIPO CHUNG (In the Loop, Camelot, National Theatre work)
DANIEL KOK (Olympics Opening Ceremony)
LIZ SUTHERLAND (Yellow Earth Theatre)
TUYEN DO (My Dad the Communist)
TINA CHIANG (Risk)
JOYCE VEHEARY (Soho Theatre)
JIN JANG (6, 7, 8)
JULIE CHEUNG (Yellow Earth Theatre)
FIONA RENE (Le Manoir de Paris)
WINDSON LIONG (All Workers Go to Heaven at Theatre Royal Stratford East)
DAN LI (Secret Diary of a Call GIrl, The Deep)
JINGAN YOUNG (AMND at Trafalgar Productions)
CHEN KO (Piercing Brightness)
ALICE LEE (As the World Turns)
JEREMY TIANG (Peace Pagoda at the Royal Opera House)
RICHARD NG YIU-HON (The Great Wall of China)
PUI FAN LEE (CBBC )
DAVID LEE-JONES (just finished the National tour of Richard 3rd)
JASON CHAN (Doctors)
ANDY CHEUNG (Asylum)
ANNA CHEN (Madam Miaow Says)
PAUL HYU (Chinese Elvis)
KUMIKO MENDL (Yellow Earth Theatre)
JANE MARCH (The Lover, Clash of the Titans)
Oh, and the whole cast of White Swans at the Young Vic.
And you still couldn’t find one not one suitable for a lead role!
Thanks to freeloader2012Report comment
I agree with the reasoned comments that have been posted here.
I would just like to add that i have great issue with the sentiment “Three East Asian company members in this context seems quite generous” – which seems to say that ‘giving’ parts to non-caucasian performers is an act of ‘generosity’. We do not need to be mathematically generous about inclusiveness in our theatre, we need to simply offer equality of opportunity (which is enshrined by law). This production is a catalyst, a stark example of a lazy exclusiveness that EA performers have had to suffer for too long. let’s stop defending this practice and making excuses for it and recognise that this IS a very real issue!Report comment
Thank you for distorting my position, Mark, and slipping in the straw-man argument that we seek for only Asians to play Asians. We are deemed incapable of playing non-Asian parts and yet, when Asian roles arise, we don’t get those either. What’s ours is ours and what’s your is ours, seems to be your mantra.
We are well aware that this is an ensemble trilogy. As the RSC bothered to do some sort of research for their groundbreaking first Chinese play, you’d have hoped that the rest would follow and they would find at least one BEA who would play leading roles across the three and demonstrate that this isn’t just a bit of exoticism. To fail to cast any Asian as a protagonist — a character who takes action and drives the story rather than simply reacts — in a specifically Chinese story (let alone the other two plays) says much about the antiquated mindset in charge.
As for yellowface, I doubt that the RSC will be so crude as to tape up actors’ eyes like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Hugo Weaving in Cloud Atlas, but from the voice-over on the RSC trailer I suspect we’re in for a bit of a treat when it comes to white actors emulating someone’s notion of Chinese voices. I see that they’ve had a crash-course in Chinese classical movement. I look forward to this as well.Report comment
The only important matter is the integrity of the production. If casting the wrong nationality compromises the plausibility of the drama than it should be addressed.
I’m not in favour of casting either Porgy Or Bess with non-Black actors and neither do I find any sense in seeing that King Lear has three daughters and one of them is Black.Report comment
I don’t see why Casting Directors don’t try to cast like accordingly- providing the actor is qualified for the role.They generally cannot -in these rotten PC days- get away with any sort of radical unorthodox casting.We recently had the all-black “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (I think that was the play!).I don’t remember it causing any fuss ,unlike perhaps an all-white Porgy & Bess would.Does double-standards spring to mind?I don’t know.It’s also been mooted that gay actors shouldn’t play straight roles and vice-versa. I recently read that there should be a black James Bond,and an actor said he would not like to be known as the BLACK James Bond as Connery was not known as the Scottish James Bond. Sorry but that is too lame an argument -and I must say this is beyond a race fight,it’s stealing an iconic role and totally one-sided.Report comment
Glad to see that ‘The Stage’ has published Daniel York’s letter, but disappointing to note that Shenton seems to be be following the majority in minimising or ignoring the issue.Report comment