The Stage

Ill-informed complaint

Published Thursday 20 March 2008 at 12:40

Terry Penfold’s letter (Stage Talk, March 6, page 8) complaining about the lack of black/Asian actors in current and recent West End theatre productions was sadly misplaced and ill-informed.

His argument was without any foundation, simply because in all the cases he cites the play’s author did not write the character parts for a black/Asian person.

I presume Mr Penfold is one of those cultural barbarians who prefers to see his Shakespeare, Pinter, Dickens, Bond, Coward, etc, in “new adaptations by… ” and “in a new translation by… ” whereby a token black/Asian actor is thrown into the production so as to appear “inclusive”. Too often when that bowdlerization of an author’s text and original intentions takes place, I suggest theatre posters/advertising claiming the show, to be seen by audiences, as a Shakespeare, Pinter, Bond, etc, should be taken down by theatre managements for breaking the Trade Descriptions Act.

I’m a serious academic scholar of Shakespearean and Jacobean drama, and avid fan of true classical (period dress) theatre. I know when a black/Asian actor should be cast because the playwright concerned assumed and noted that to be so.

Mr Penfold ought to attend an academic course on theatre history and performance and educate himself properly before claiming the ‘ethnic’ moral high ground.

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