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Colorblind Shakespeare - New Perspectives on Race and Performance
Edited by Ayanna Thompson
Routledge, £18.99
Dateline: 8th January, 2007
"The idea of colorblind casting is the same idea of assimilation
that black Americans have been rejecting for the past 380 years…colorblind
casting is an aberrant idea that has never had any validity other than
as a tool of the Cultural Imperialists."
August Wilson, distinguished black dramatist and director, 1996
"To discuss colorblind casting in Shakespeare," writes Anita
Loomba in her foreward to this excellent new collection of essays, "is
necessarily to tread the difficult places where questions of representation
and theatrical practice intersect with the politics of multiculturalism
and antiracism". From as early as 1821, when the African Theatre
of New York performed Richard III with an all-black cast, to
a multi-racial Antony and Cleopatra in 1963, critics have complained
that black actors don't look or sound right in Shakespearean roles.
But colourblind casting began to gain acceptance in the 1980s, so long
ago it seems rather surprising that this is the first book on the subject.
As Ayanna Thompson points out, there are three schools of thought with
regard to colourblind casting. Firstly, the audience is expected to
suspend its disbelief to the extent of ignoring or even forgetting the
actor's race. Secondly, and in complete contrast - no pun intended!
- it is held that "black" Shakespearean roles such as Othello,
Aaron and (perhaps) Cleopatra are so scarce they should be the preserve
of black actors. Thirdly, a director may choose to make a socio-political
point by using a black actor in a "white" role.
The dubious validity of the first approach is well summed up by Lisa
M Anderson in her essay When Race Matters - Reading Race in Richard
III and Macbeth: "Colorblindness requires that we ignore three
hundred years of history, or if not ignore them, render them meaningless."
She makes some interesting points about two recent Shakespeare productions,
the Globe's 2001 Macbeth - a stylised interpretation set in the
1920s in which the only black actors in the cast played Duncan's sons
- and an American Richard III in which the sole black actor played
the title role.
Most critics simply ignored the colourblind casting but audiences were
perplexed by what they saw on stage. Were they meant to interpret the
flight of Malcolm and Donalbain after their father's murder as the response
of two young black men at risk of being framed for a crime they didn't
commit? Was Richard's self-loathing at least partly due to his race,
and was it possible to watch his seduction of Lady Anne without being
reminded of the white supremacist obsession with miscegenation?
There is clearly plenty of scope for confusion between casting the
best actor regardless of race, using the actor's ethnicity in a way
that complements the text and making a socio-political point. In Ocular
Revisions Angela C Pao looks at Harold Scott's 1990 production of
Othello for the Shakespeare Theatre Company, in which Othello,
Iago and Emilia were all clearly identified as being of North African
origin. Critics and audiences alike accepted the idea, which even provided
a motive for Iago's hatred of Othello - resentment of his upwardly mobile
general's success in acquiring a white trophy wife. But five years later
Penny Metropulos' production of the play with a black Iago and white
Emilia was poorly received, being taken at face value by audiences unfamiliar
with the director's previous use of unconventional casting. As Francesca
T Royster's essay indicates, non-naturalistic productions such as Edward
Hall's Rose Rage - in which the black actor Bruce A. Young, playing
the Duke of York as a minstrel show "Nigger Dandy", was "lynched"
by the white Queen Margaret and Clifford - are least likely to mislead
audiences into searching for non-existent directorial concepts.
The August Wilson quote at the beginning of this review is a reminder
that not all critics of colourblind casting are white right-wingers.
Hugh Quarshie's opinion that black actors should not play Othello as
the role perpetuates racist stereotypes is echoed by Celia R Daileader,
whose essay The Cleopatra Complex - White Actresses on the Interracial
Classic Stage examines the Cleopatra controversy - was the historical
queen a black African or a fair-skinned Macedonian Greek, and should
black actresses be playing her Shakespearean incarnation?
The remaining essays in Colorblind Shakespeare are equally thought-provoking.
Sujata Iyengar looks some curious critical responses to colourblind
casting in single-sex productions, Courtney Lehmann is unimpressed by
what she sees as a thin veneer of multiculturalism in Kenneth Branagh's
Shakespeare films and Richard Burt examines the hijacking of colourblind
Shakespeare by American neo-conservatism. One of the most fascinating
contributions is Krystyna Kujawinska Courtney's essay on Ira Aldridge
(1807-1867), the first black actor to achieve stardom for his Shakespearean
roles. Aldridge was never accepted by London's theatrical establishment
but was idolized by European audiences, many of whom were introduced
to Shakespeare by his stage performances and monologues. Images of the
actor as Othello and Aaron are so familiar it is refreshing to see an
extraordinary photo of Aldridge in "whiteface" as King Lear,
taken in the 1860s and now owned by a Moscow theatre museum.
Colorblind Shakespeare is a valuable addition to the literature
of performance studies. The twelve contributors, who include academics,
actors and directors, provide a variety of different viewpoints on this
important and still contentious issue.
J D Atkinson
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