Park first discovered the role (and the play) when she was in high school and saw the 1994 film Double Happiness, which stars Sandra Oh as an Asian woman who dreams of becoming an actress.
Friday, March 24, 2017
For the First Time Ever, An Asian-American Has Been Cast In a Classic Tennessee Williams Role
Park first discovered the role (and the play) when she was in high school and saw the 1994 film Double Happiness, which stars Sandra Oh as an Asian woman who dreams of becoming an actress.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
This is amazing! I’m so very glad that modern theatre is finally turning old traditions and stereotypes on their heads. Obviously, Linda Park is enthused about her role as well: “There was this feeling of 'I have to love it secretly because it doesn’t belong to me,'” she says. “I legitimately thought I was excluded from that world of the South in the midcentury and from Tennessee [Williams], from being able to do any of his works, because I thought I don’t belong in that world. Yet I felt, as a soul to another soul, I felt such a connection to Tennessee Williams in a way that I’ve felt with no other playwright.” It seems so bizarre that the role of Cat has never been played by an Asian woman. In all the years this show has been running not once as an Asian ever been cast? Outrageous to an extreme
It is amazing that people continually make leaps and bounds in the topic of equality. While yes in some shows it is important for the race of the character to be what is specified, for example in Hairspray, The Color Purple, The Whipping Man, but not always. Sometimes when the race of characters is not mentioned, a white actor is chosen for the role. It's not bad that a white actor is chosen, it is just bad when it is constantly happening with no variety. Tennessee Williams is such a well-known, popular play write that this casting decision was bound to make it to the ears of many. It does help when there is a big name associated with these steps forward, the bandwagon effect could start to occur and then there is hopefully more equality. This is another article that shows the theatre industry and those who belong in it are trying to make progress in a positive direction. I continue to see more articles every day that show how far we are advancing in equality.
These are the kinds of articles that make me excited to read. These are the kind of articles that make me excited for our art form. I am a firm believer of color blind casting. I think unless the show explicitly calls for a specific race to play a role, I think that a role should be up for grabs to anyone. I agree with emily wholeheartedly and have seen instances when roles are not specified racially the assumption is that it is a white role. I could not disagree more with this mentality. Each Actor has their own heritage and culture when brought to a role- changes the play--which is so beautiful. I also find it particularly interesting when productions cast a leading actor that is racially different from their understudy. I experienced this first hand in Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. I saw the production twice, the first time with Natasha's understudy-- a white woman. Next, with the original Natasha- a beautiful black woman. Each actress brought something new to the role because of their own life experiences.
This is great! I am so excited to see the theater community walking the walk in stead of just talking about how we need more diversity. I feel like so many of these articles are discouraging because they talk about how we need things to happen and then nothing happens, but this makes me feel good about the group I am a part of. I was having a conversation the other day with my friend from home who is a white man and i said something about how I lost a lot of respect for Scarlett Johansson when she took that role as a woman who was supposed to be asian, and my friend said "yeah I really don't get why thats such a big deal", and thats exactly why representation matters. This friend of mine is very liberal and someone who I consider to be a great advocate for diversity except maybe he isn't. I was confronted with my own white bubble in that moment because it was not enough to just be enough. I had to speak out and tell him why he was wrong and why proper representation matters. I am happy that this is happening and I hope to see more of it.
This so great to hear! Like Emily and Zak I believe that unless a character's race is explicitly stated in the text anyone should be able to perform any role. Many people think that this could take away from how believable a show is, but this simply isn't true. In order to prove this you simple have to look at shows that are huge commercial successes right now like Hamilton and Great Comet. Both productions cast the best actors they can for each role without taking their race into account. They have both received great reviews, and in Hamilton's case numerous Tony awards and nominations. Every person has their own unique story to tell, and diversity in casting ensures that multiple perspectives make it to the stage. Although I won't be able to see this production I hope that it goes well, and that Park is able to enjoy performing this role that she has rightfully earned,
It’s so great to finally hear about an asian american actor breaking boundaries by playing a part traditionally only given to white women (amongst the usual sea of articles about white people being cast as asian characters in contemporary media). There is this age-old argument against “race- blind” casting about historical accuracy that I think just doesn’t work anymore in our modern America. When doing plays written and performed hundreds or even thousands of years ago in the melting- pot country we are in today, we aren’t fooling anyone by sticking to the 100% white standard of yesteryear. The only way that people of color’s stories will be humanized and, therefore, lead to the breaking down of the culture of fear that currently surrounds immigrants and non-white people is by representing them onstage and onscreen, whether or not they are necessarily “meant” for that role. While it’s very interesting and cool that Linda Park was able to find a spot of historical accuracy for her Chinese- american character in William’s play, I think that this shouldn’t be consistently expected of people of color when given chances like this because this is a default that white people never are forced to deal with.
As Emily points out, there are certain roles where a character's race is explicitly called for in the script and fundamentally part of the playwright’s intention. It seems that the entertainment industry is starting to understand that truly embracing diversity is not just about including more roles where that specifically called for race is not white, but casting actors of color in roles that were not necessarily written with them in mind. Seeing this article shortly after the news that Laverne Cox had been cast in a role not specifically written as a trans woman makes me hopeful that we are starting to see some change as a result of our “maddeningly slow” process. But then of course companies like Marvel first produce Luke Cage which is lauded for its strong portrayal of an African-American man and its diversity and then turns around and makes Iron Fist, yet another white dude appropriating Asian culture and learning martial arts in order to be badass. And the company does not seem that conscious about the choices they are making. In fact, in Daredevil, they have cast a seeing actor as the blind Matt Murdock, which while still problematic at least makes some practical sense, given in particularly some of the scenes and fight chronography, and yet Charlie Cox, the actor, at least in interviews still seems very conscientious of the fact that he is portraying a community that he is not a part of and yet the team on Iron Fist has blown off comments about their whitewashing and seem to think it's “not that big a deal.” If you can see all those contradicts just within a single company it shows you that, despite these individual, although not insignificant, victories, we are a very long way away from a pervasive culture of diversity and inclusion for everyone in the entertainment industry.
Post a Comment