Despite the great variety of shows and productions across the globe, racial inauthenticity continues to be a common phenomenon in theatre, musical theatre and classical music, as it is part of a long-withstanding system of stereotyping and typecasting. This essay aims to briefly unpack the historical relationship between race and performance, to illustrate how such cases of questionable casting have occurred in recent productions, and to examine how our current sociopolitical circumstances directly affect casting decisions in the western world.
In the nineteenth century, minstrel shows emerged as a popular source of entertainment in North America. For these performances, the white male performers would cover their faces in burnt cork or paint,
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In this adaptation, Olivier followed the long tradition of performing this role in blackface, which itself had started in Elizabethan times. This award-winning film production was critically appraised, and found widespread success. In more recent years however, it has been heavily criticised for Olivier’s choice of not only performing this role in blackface, but also for adopting a heavy “exotic” accent of his own concoction and developing a particular walk for his character to signify his “otherness” . In the operatic adaptation of the same play, Guiseppe Verdi’s Otello, the long-running tradition of performing in blackface has only recently began to fade, and with black singers cast as the title role being a rarity. Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Atonenko was the first Otello not to perform in blackface in the history of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 2015 . However, operas such as Verdi’s Aida still use brownface regularly when being performed in major opera houses, despite its setting being in Egypt. These unflattering representations of people of African descent are based on stereotypes and long-lasting, systematic traditions of discrimination and exoticisation of “the …show more content…
The show is set in Washington Heights, a New York neighborhood known for being a very tight-knit Latino community, and it was originally presented on Broadway using an exclusively Latino cast. As one of the few pieces of musical theatre that actively seeks performers of Latin American descent, it has become a beacon of representation in the circles of musical theatre. However, in September 2017, the Australian production company Matt Ward Entertainment decided to open the show using exclusively Australian performers, half of which claimed some non-Australian descent. The production was ultimately cancelled due to receiving heavy criticism for their inauthentic casting of these roles
For the purposes of this paper, minstrelsy is defined using Fee’s (2003) six core characteristics: authenticity, malapropisms and dialect, physicality, gender representations, playfulness, and anonymity. Authenticity refers to a performer’s claim that the characters he or she is presenting are based on actual people. The second characteristic, malapropisms and dialect, refers to changing dialect and speech patterns to reflect the intended person or people being represented by the character. The use of malapropisms, the mistaken use of similar sounding words, is particular to Blackface minstrelsy. Thirdly, the performer seeks to “accurately” convey the physical characteristics of the represented subject. This effort can range from exaggeration of facial and body parts to replicating the movement of the mimicked subject. Gender representations refers to the tendency to either minimize or exaggerate the masculinity or femininity of the character. The characters are often either hypersexualized, like the Bla...
Kislan, Richard. The Musical: A Look at the American Musical Theater. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1980. 84, 110, 116-121, 125-127, 128, 134, 163, 195, 201, 209. Print.
Hamilton: An American Musical, the spellbinding play by Lin-Manuel Miranda, nominated for a record breaking sixteen Tony Awards and winning eleven. How have they gotten their success? It doesn't only consist of an amazing sore and script, actors can make or break a musical/play. What makes Hamilton: An American Musical revolutionary is not only the talent and experience of the cast its the background and races of the cast. Though all the characters are white, the main actors are all different races. The founding fathers and mothers of the United States are played by an assortment of African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, Puerto Ricans, and Caucasians. 2016-17 has proved to be a very diverse year for Broadway, with revivals
F. R. Leavis discusses the breakdown of sympathy for Othello, arguing that ‘Othello is too stupid to be regarded as a tragic hero’. Other critics also argue that Shakespeare ‘fully exploits the unique cultural opportunity to develop a more complex and sympathetic representation of black experience’ [The Noble Moor – Othello and Race in Elizabethan London, Roger Lees], implying that the sympathy that a contemporary audience would have felt for Othello was based oncultural context, given that the audience were predominantly white. However, it could be argued that it cannot just be the cultural context to Shakespeare’s audiences that has allowed Othello to become one of his most renowned tragedies; if this were the case, the play would have lost all critical interest by the 18th Century. It is Shakespeare’s use of the conventions of tragedy in attributing Othello with hubris that, although making it hard to empathise with at times, in the...
The theme of this musical was different than the contemporary comical musicals in the sense that the plot had a tragic ending. This presented a huge challenge to the creators. West Side Story, for the fir...
I think this play is a lot about what does race mean, and to what extent do we perform race either onstage or in life:
Beautiful and dramatic imagery would be crucial to the success of this production. I hope people would come away from the show with a genuine sense of wonder, and an empathy for themes of loss and individual struggle for identity within communities and intimate relationships. If people leave thinking “that trick was clever”, then the misdirection has failed and the magic is lost. I would also hope that the territory explored in devising the piece would present opportunities to continue with the same company of performers to create a follow up work based on Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika.
Orkin, Martin. “Othello and the “plain face” Of Racism.” 2nd ed. Vol. 38. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 166-88. Shakespeare Quarterly. Folger Shakespeare Library in Association with George Washington University, Summer 1987. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. .
Racism in William Shakespeare's Othello. The play, Othello, is certainly, in part, the tragedy of racism. Examples of racism are common throughout the dialogue. This racism is directed toward Othello, a brave soldier from Africa and currently the supreme commander of the Venetian army.
Within both Titus Andronicus and Othello both by William Shakespeare the reader is introduced to the concept of a black man within a white society. Stigmas and stereotypes are attached to the black characters of Aaron and Othello. Although each black character has a similar stigma, the characters are very different from one another. Aaron is portrayed as evil, conniving and malevolent, while Othello has none of these traits. Othello's fault lies in the fact that he is very gullible and easily led.
Have you ever thought about how much Othello’s race and the racism around him affected his life? Othello struggled a lot during the play because of his dark skin color. He was called several racist names like “the Moor,” “old black ram,” “Barbary horse,” and “thick lips” (Shakespeare 1.1.40; 1.1.88; 1.1.111; 1.1.66).The term “racism” has been around for several years; it started in the twentieth century (Bartels 433). By the way the Elizabethan era viewed black people was similar to how racism is today with all of the racial comments, and stereotypes. Being a black person in a mostly white ethnicity area at that time had to be challenging based on Othello’s experience. Othello was the black sheep crowded around a herd of white sheep, he was an outcast. Racist comments were made by many of the characters like Iago, Brabantio, Roderigo, and Emilia. If there was an award for most used racial comment towards Othello, Iago would win. Racism in Othello had a tremendous impact on Othello. He was judged by the color of his skin and not his personality. Othello’s race and the racism around him affected his life by ruining his marriage with Desdemona, alienating him from everybody in Venice, and by making him an easy target to be manipulated by Iago.
In the Sixteenth century, as we see clearly from Othello and other works of both Shakespeare and Cinthio's original version of Othello, race was a topic of great debate and discussion. Today, in the twenty-first century the debate retains its controversy and passion. However, attitudes towards race have taken a dramatic turn during the last century. In the developed world people are now living in an increasingly cosmopolitan society would undoubtedly be more tolerant and would reject or even be offended by racial discrimination to any person or sections of the community. Openly 'racist' people today are seen as outcasts. Taking this into account, the way a modern audience would react to race and racism in Othello is dependent upon the way in which that modern audience would interpret 'Othello'. This prompts the questions of what sort of message Shakespeare wanted to send to his audience and was Othello the moor portrayed as a tragic hero or did his character eventually come to resemble the prejudices of which he was a victim. Shakespeare also discusses the issue of race with other characters such as the hateful Iago and the prejudices hidden deep in Barbantio.
Bartels, Emily C. “Making more of the Moor: Aaron, Othello, and Renaissance Refashionings of Race.” Shakespeare Quarterly 41.4 (1990): 433-54. JSTOR. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
One of the major issues in Shakespeare's Othello is the impact of the race of the main character, Othello. His skin color is non-white, usually portrayed as African although some productions portray him as an Arabian. Othello is referred to by his name only seventeen times in the play. He is referred to as "The Moor" fifty-eight times. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) states that a Moor is "Any individual of the swarthy races of Africa or Asia which have adopted the Mohammedan religion. In Spanish history the terms Moo, Saracens, and Arabs are synonymous." This indicates that Othello is constantly being degraded and set up as an evil person throughout the play. What this really means is that Othello is being judged by his skin color rather than the person under the skin. The view that whites and non-whites are equal is a relatively new concept in our society. In institutionalized racism, such as American slavery, those of a different color were often viewed as inferior. As Shakespeare wrote Othello, this idea was becoming quite prominent as England entered the African slave trade. One can look at the racial issues from the perspective of color, slavery, and society.
The 2000s/ 2010s brought in a wave of movie musicals- adapted from the stage shows. These brought new audiences into the theatre world, and for the first time in 20 years, brought a love to some of the timeless musicals. With slightly altered songs to appeal to a newer audience, these films brought in much needed money into the industry, with films including: Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Fame- and many more. Together with this, musicals began to push the concept of the songs in them, with a wave of new styles being written. Rap musicals such as ‘Hamilton’ and ‘In The Heights’, Pop musicals including ‘Waitress’ and ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and Rock musicals of ‘American Idiot’ and ‘Spring Awakening’. Together they pushed boundaries of a ‘traditional’ musical theatre sound, and brought in something never before seen. Due to the influence of ‘Rent’, controversial issues and themes began to be explored more, such as Teen suicide, Murder, Ethnic barriers and everything else, which brought with them, a world of opportunities. It was clear that musical theatre was once again showing for a promising