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Playbill.com: Bruce Norris, whose play Clybourne Park features white and African-American characters — to Pulitzer Prize-honored, Tony Award-winning effect — stripped a German theatre company of rights to his drama when he learned that a white actress would be using makeup to play a black woman.
5 comments:
Jess Bergson
said...
Good for Bruce Norris! One of the most stunning and brilliant aspects of Clybourne Park is its statement on race and discrimination. It is disturbingly ironic that a German Troupe showcased the themes and ideas in which Norris intended to make a commentary against. Of course Norris should be flattered and excited that his plays are being produced internationally, but I am glad to see that he is taking a stand for what is right and petitioning to stop discrimination in theaters internationally. Hopefully enough members of the Guild will stand by Norris in his petition and German Troupes will get the message and make changes in their casting, and in their society.
It is great that he actively corrected something that he felt was wrong. Asking the white actor to put on blackface for a show that really delves into racism is just a tad counterproductive. They probably shouldn't be putting on this show if that is how they feel about their country's Black actors. Then again, maybe they should so that the audience can witness the hypocrisy of it all.
However, just to play devil's advocate, I wonder how we (the US in the eyes of the Germans) are perceived through this issue. At what point do we interfere with another culture too much? Why do we take it upon ourselves to change other people and places? They are working through a certain point in their own history regarding race. America certainly didn't take foreign advice when we oppressed people with a skin color other than white. I'm not saying that we shouldn't revoke the rights to produce this production because we should inspire change. At least in the sphere of the arts, where change is constant, there is more room for influence. What I'm saying is that the US shoves it's own ideals at other countries and groups of people with the presumption that we are "better" and "correct". Maybe our persistence should be considered next time, not necessarily on this issue but on the numerous issues that we are involved in around the world.
I think theaters have the right to cast whomever they want in their productions, and for whatever reasons. However, I also believe that authors and copyright owners have the right to pull the rights from that theater if the casting has been done in any form of malicious way, or in any ay that will hurt the image of the play and/or playwright. At what point, however, do you draw the line? Can a playwright pull the rights for a play if they don't like the actor who will be playing a specific role? I would be interested to know what kind of process a playwright or company has to go through in order to pull the rights for a show after granting them. The safest way to handle these situations preemptively would be to make sure you cover everything that is important to you about the play in the contract for the rights. If Mr. Norris had stated in his contract that rights would be revoked if any actors were placed in blackface in order to play a role, then his battle with the German theater may have been a little easier and more streamlined.
I often wonder what someone like William Shakespeare or Sophocles would say if they saw some of the productions of their work and if they might take offense to something like women playing female roles or other significant differences since they've been living [this example assumes they would have had any right, of course]. Doing any work, it seems to me, by a living author comes with it the danger of that author not approving your artistic choices. If and when that happens, that author has a right to deny you the opportunity to do their work. That is, after all, the whole point of the Dramatist's Guild existing. But that one writer's opposition isn't, I think, the "US interfering in other countries' cultures." That's an artist seeing his work being improperly produced in a fashion he happens to vehemently disagree with. The Obama administration isn't invading Germany to put a stop to blackface; a single artist is putting his foot down.
That being said, at least by this article's reporting, The Deutsches Theatre's claiming a white woman in blackface as an artistic choice seems ... lazy casting, at best, and immoral & racist, at close to worst. While you may be able to justify to yourself [and your board] such racial choices are artistic in nature [and somehow, then, excused from the racial tones it inherently has attached to it] you also then have to accept that other people will not accept these justifications and judge you harshly because of them.
Just as with blackface here in America, just because we did it before doesn't excuse its continuation. Hire an actor of the appropriate race for the role you're trying to portray. This is 2012, for pete's sake...
Wow, Germany. I wish that I could expect more from you but to be honest, I really am not surprised, in America this is a serious issue because of the struggles that we have encountered in the past. Germany, of course has different past and I was hoping they would have gained a little more tact but I guess that this is not the case. I think that Bruce Norris made a good choice. This issue was talked about a lot during last week’s pod cast. I hope that we will revisit it this week. The second issue is. How do different cultures view other cultures taboos?
5 comments:
Good for Bruce Norris! One of the most stunning and brilliant aspects of Clybourne Park is its statement on race and discrimination. It is disturbingly ironic that a German Troupe showcased the themes and ideas in which Norris intended to make a commentary against. Of course Norris should be flattered and excited that his plays are being produced internationally, but I am glad to see that he is taking a stand for what is right and petitioning to stop discrimination in theaters internationally. Hopefully enough members of the Guild will stand by Norris in his petition and German Troupes will get the message and make changes in their casting, and in their society.
It is great that he actively corrected something that he felt was wrong. Asking the white actor to put on blackface for a show that really delves into racism is just a tad counterproductive. They probably shouldn't be putting on this show if that is how they feel about their country's Black actors. Then again, maybe they should so that the audience can witness the hypocrisy of it all.
However, just to play devil's advocate, I wonder how we (the US in the eyes of the Germans) are perceived through this issue. At what point do we interfere with another culture too much? Why do we take it upon ourselves to change other people and places? They are working through a certain point in their own history regarding race. America certainly didn't take foreign advice when we oppressed people with a skin color other than white. I'm not saying that we shouldn't revoke the rights to produce this production because we should inspire change. At least in the sphere of the arts, where change is constant, there is more room for influence. What I'm saying is that the US shoves it's own ideals at other countries and groups of people with the presumption that we are "better" and "correct". Maybe our persistence should be considered next time, not necessarily on this issue but on the numerous issues that we are involved in around the world.
I think theaters have the right to cast whomever they want in their productions, and for whatever reasons. However, I also believe that authors and copyright owners have the right to pull the rights from that theater if the casting has been done in any form of malicious way, or in any ay that will hurt the image of the play and/or playwright. At what point, however, do you draw the line? Can a playwright pull the rights for a play if they don't like the actor who will be playing a specific role? I would be interested to know what kind of process a playwright or company has to go through in order to pull the rights for a show after granting them. The safest way to handle these situations preemptively would be to make sure you cover everything that is important to you about the play in the contract for the rights. If Mr. Norris had stated in his contract that rights would be revoked if any actors were placed in blackface in order to play a role, then his battle with the German theater may have been a little easier and more streamlined.
I often wonder what someone like William Shakespeare or Sophocles would say if they saw some of the productions of their work and if they might take offense to something like women playing female roles or other significant differences since they've been living [this example assumes they would have had any right, of course]. Doing any work, it seems to me, by a living author comes with it the danger of that author not approving your artistic choices. If and when that happens, that author has a right to deny you the opportunity to do their work. That is, after all, the whole point of the Dramatist's Guild existing. But that one writer's opposition isn't, I think, the "US interfering in other countries' cultures." That's an artist seeing his work being improperly produced in a fashion he happens to vehemently disagree with. The Obama administration isn't invading Germany to put a stop to blackface; a single artist is putting his foot down.
That being said, at least by this article's reporting, The Deutsches Theatre's claiming a white woman in blackface as an artistic choice seems ... lazy casting, at best, and immoral & racist, at close to worst. While you may be able to justify to yourself [and your board] such racial choices are artistic in nature [and somehow, then, excused from the racial tones it inherently has attached to it] you also then have to accept that other people will not accept these justifications and judge you harshly because of them.
Just as with blackface here in America, just because we did it before doesn't excuse its continuation. Hire an actor of the appropriate race for the role you're trying to portray. This is 2012, for pete's sake...
Wow, Germany. I wish that I could expect more from you but to be honest, I really am not surprised, in America this is a serious issue because of the struggles that we have encountered in the past. Germany, of course has different past and I was hoping they would have gained a little more tact but I guess that this is not the case. I think that Bruce Norris made a good choice. This issue was talked about a lot during last week’s pod cast. I hope that we will revisit it this week. The second issue is. How do different cultures view other cultures taboos?
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