The Stage

Diversity debate

Published Monday 17 March 2008 at 17:05

In response to Terry Penfold’s letter in The Stage two weeks ago (‘Black and Asian actors overlooked’, March 6, page 8) I welcome a turn in the tide that could make it the norm to criticise a production for having an all-white cast, as opposed to one which declares that colour-blind casting does not ‘make sense’ when it means, for instance, the white daughter of a black father onstage. Or indeed, that an English king cannot be played by a black man, a comment that I am still finding myself having to defend in the casting of my Shakespeare Histories Cycle, which comes to the Roundhouse in April.

It is true that the company of 25 actors cross-cast in Trevor Nunn’s King Lear and the Seagull were all white. It is also true that this company is an exception to every other RSC acting company over the last few years. As Mr Penfold points out, the RSC has “regularly presented black and Asian actors in leading roles”, both in our classic repertoire and in our new work. We haven’t stopped. This year is no different, and our shows in Stratford, some of which will grace the West End stages later on in the year, will boast, among a diverse company as a whole, a Bottom, an Oberon, a Titania, a Bianca, a Hermia, an Old Gobbo, a Rosaline, a Henry VI, a Warwick and a Lady Percy, none of whom are white.

It’s not about ticking boxes. It’s about employing the finest actors for the job, whatever their colour. Hopefully we can continue, along with the other off-West End theatre companies, to get those actors seen, to turn that tide, and to finally put to rest the kind of Daily Mail prejudice that is much more of a barrier to good casting than the idea that “the classics” do not lend themselves to diversity on the West End stage.

Michael Boyd

RSC artistic director

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