Exeunt Magazine: “Nobody who has talent should be kept out of the acting profession. And nobody, even white, middle-class males, should be prevented from playing any part,” said Simon Callow, commenting in a Guardian piece last week which, slightly insidiously, painted a picture of a world in which increasingly strong calls for diversity in casting were limiting some actors’ careers.
4 comments:
This is definitely a tricky issue, and I think the author has hit on a number of useful thoughts. That aside, Saville is largely responding to a article published on a large platform for a broad audience. Exeunt magazine, on the other hand, specifically targets people who do or see theatre. It is in a sense a niche topic. Callow’s argument will be taken more seriously because of the platform, and because he is a white man of a certain age. Saville, on the other hand, will be largely dismissed as “radical” and ignored. It is certainly a tricky issue. Yes, the best person for the part should be cast, but yes, there are broader implications to every casting decision. In the age of social media, where everyone can broadcast their opinions globally, it is important to consider the actor’s appropriateness as a representative of the work and the theatre itself.
I think this article highlights a greater issue brought up through Simon Callow’s misguided comment. He seems to be talking about equality verse equity. The problem Callow’s views are that in this unfair equality is not what everyone needs but people need to be treated with equity. I think this is a greater conversation happening in the world and I always find it interesting how in the theatre industry it deals with actors. I think having queer actors playing queer characters is just as important as having queer designers and managers working on the show. I find it interesting how the world usually views sexuality as not something inherent to someone when in fact a person is born with it, in the same way, that we look at people’s races. It is completely taboo to do blackface but not to have a straight person do gay face if you will. I find it even more confusing when casting calls ask for women and men but will never ask for non-binary people. Why do people who align with the binary get to be cast based on their gender and people that don’t. I think it is extremely interesting that people get upset at casting gay people as gay characters but you would never cast a man as a woman or a black person as a white person. I think this brings a huge issue in our industry not just of getting representation but giving accurate portrays of things.
I think it is obvious that Simon's comment is wrong. A white person can't play just any part. I think the more important conversation to be had is what the title of the article gets at. What do we do when casting people as characters with identities that are not visible? Race, certain abilities, and gender identity are all relatively visible parts of peoples' identity which is why it becomes so problematic to cast someone outside of that identity. Suddenly that group that is supposed to be represented by a character is completely erased. So what about sexuality? Do we seek out only homosexual actors for homosexual roles? I do not know the answer. Actors are good at what they do and I would never tell a straight actor they can't play a gay person because they haven't experienced that. Actors' whole careers are based on assuming roles they have not been in, but capability to convincingly play the role is not the point. The reason we are so vigilant about casting actors of a certain race or ability level is because those actors are so often denied roles that it is an outrage when a role that is MEANT for them is denied to them. So that begs the question, are gay actors usually denied roles?
This issue of people playing things outside of who they are has been getting more and more attention lately. To an extent I think characters should be represented by people who are alike to them or what they’ve been through because it keeps roles open to certain people that might not be as likely to get other roles, as well as there are certain things that they can bring from their own experiences that other people might not be able to. Accurate representation is important. It seems like society has mostly established that actors shouldn’t play roles outside of their race, but then are we going to wind up caring about the specific ethnicities within those? Because there are lots of differences even between nationalities with similar characteristics such as Korean vs Filipino. And on the topic of sexualities, I feel like it’s a lot harder to stay exactly within those bounds because for one, the actor’s sexuality isn’t usually blatantly obvious. It’s not a physical trait like race, so really they could be anything. The overall question is how far does this ‘accuracy’ go?
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