NPR: A visitor to the Beijing People's Art Theatre this past August would have been treated to an unexpected sight on its wooden stage: Chinese actors, rehearsing A Raisin in the Sun, a play that tells the story of an African American family's struggle against racism in 1950s Chicago.
Beijing actor and director Ying Da is mounting the first-ever Chinese-language production of Lorraine Hansberry's play. The thorniest issue at hand: how to convey to a mostly Chinese audience that an all-Chinese cast is portraying an African American family.
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Currently, there is a huge debate in the theater world about who gets to tell whose story. This article took that to a whole other level- Chinese actors in China in A Raisin in the Sun a play about Black Americans. There is a lot to unpack in this article. It discusses the history of blackface in China which is done in a very different manner than in the US. I don't really know how acceptable this is and to be honest it isn't my place to say. The director and creative staff consulted many people to do their show in a respectful way but for some reason, it still feels a bit off to me. It would be very interesting to have a more in-depth discussion about this article because I feel like personally, I don't have much perspective into it.
I am not a fan of this version of this play. “A Raisin in the Sun” is a play about Black Americans. The characters should be played by Black people. Black hairstyles and darker skin should not be appropriated to represent Black characters. You know, just overall, Black stories should not be appropriated by non-Black people. This WHOLE CONCEPT seems like a really big no. This play represents what is and was seriously the reality for millions of Black people in the US. To stage this play during what is a HUGE movement for racial justice in the play’s country of origin, to completely disregard the purpose and history of this play, is to commit a pretty big injustice. I really just do not see how this is acceptable. And for the director to outright say that American race politics are “not important” in China when they’re performing an entire play about that very thing is just wrong. What does it serve to do then? It’s clearly not going to educate anyone on the American reality. If it is meant to educate people on the parallels to the Chinese reality, then the original intent and continuity of the play NEEDS to be considered. Why not give Black Chinese actors the chance to talk about their reality living in a place where no one looks like them? Why do non-Black people want so badly to perform works about anti-blackness without any actual Black people? And throughout this entire article I truly cannot find a good enough answer to either of those questions.
I seriously would like every one to read this article and realize how problematic this is. There are black actors that live in China and could have easily been cast into this show. Saying that racism “isn't an issue here” is absolutely ridiculous and provides a false narrative that racism and colorism only exists in America. A Raisin In The Sun is a powerful play about the experiences of a BLACK family in America. Just as the playwright stated, it is a black story and should be treated as such. The bronzing of the skin is racist and should be treated as such. I understand it has a completely different cultural significance but black people are discriminated against everywhere. But just to be clear, Black does NOT equal African American. Black people exist in every race and experience the effects of colorism in their communities. If A Chinese theatre wants to portray a story about a black family whose race matters in the play, then hire black actors. Period.
When I first saw this article, I had to do a double-take. I mean, there's no way I saw that correctly, right? Even reading it, I had to go back and read some sections a few times to get it into my head what is happening. Society at large has adopted a paradigm recently that is more sensitive to racial justice and injustice than ever before. For this director to choose to put on this play and carry it out how they have (keeping Chinese actors, for instance) is almost to proclaim their ignorance for this paradigm. Furthermore, although the director insists that the timing of this play is not related to the growing of the Black Lives Matter movement, one would think that that might influence his decision to put on this play. As also pointed out in the article, China has recently been under scrutiny for acts ranging from discrimination to full racial suppression. Though I understand the significance of this play to the director through his mother, all these things together do not give reason enough for the director to put on this play within a society so apparently blind to racial injustice both within its own borders and in the world altogether.
I do think that the this article and the production are a little problematic. The director believes that what they are doing is not racist which could be the case, however in every possible way it is ignorant. To put on this production about the black experience they should have black people in china or other countries. I do think it is okay to change the language that the play is in as it makes it more accessible to others however using black face would be disrespectful to what the story is originally about. It also seems suspicious that the director is saying this play has nothing to do with the BLM movement; putting on a play about the black experience in America and having no black actors seems to be a very risky move during the height of this movement. I think regardless where a play is taking place, race should be accurately represented which is something America has to work on as well. I think this production may make it seem as though any POC can play another POC, however each race has its own stories and struggles that they should represent. It is important that asians create stories of their own experiences and honor the stories of other race's experiences.
Aside from being completely disrespectful and gross, this adaptation of the play goes against the very will of the author and the entire point of the show. If the central conflict in the show revolves around race, isn’t it important to cast people of that race to give them that representation? It does not make any sense to deny that the race of the actors is important to this show. Lorraine Hansberry explicitly said she intended it to revolve around the conflict of racism against black people in America. And although the theater historian argues “Multiethnic casting in other canonical theatrical works such as those of Shakespeare…is already widely accepted,” racial conflict toward black people in America is not exactly a common central theme or conflict in Shakespeare’s work that A Raisin in the Sun can be remotely compared to. Also, the fact that Asian actors ‘dressed up’ as their black characters with wigs and bronzer is unbelievable. No matter how light the bronzer is, the intention is clear, and this is just another example of black face being accepted in the modern day. The fact that this made its way to production is extremely disappointing.
This Chinese rendition of "A Raisin in the Sun" has severely caused questions of cultural appropriation and misappropriation. I think that it is great that China is integrating different cultures into their theater, and also being able to do so during a pandemic is something I do not think many people have noticed that I wish was elaborated on more in the article. However, taking measures such as slightly bronzing the skin of the actors, though the designers and producers knew what line they were crossing and took to lightly bronzing rather than something worse, this is inhibiting racist behavior. I think that this bronzing definitely took the show over the line. They were no longer celebrating the culture and instead black facing. There are also black people who live in China who definitely could have been casted instead. All of these racist measures of production enforces how inappropriate and ignorant this rendition is.
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