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| re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 04:59 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 04:50 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| In reply to: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' - mattyp4 04:37 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
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| I think it's only appropriate if talented people of color auditioned. But also, Esmeralda wasn't black or Asian or South East Asian or Arab... wouldn't she have been from Spain? Or Romania (except she's named Esmerelda)? But I'm not actually sure... however I do know that the origin of "Gypsy" people (if that's even that it's referring to in this context) is complicated. And so wasn't it possible she'd have looked white? Gypsy isn't necessary a specific racial identifier. So even if non-white female students auditioned, who's to say they're any more appropriate for the role, other than being visually "other"? I assume they were expecting a Latina to be cast (even though that may not have been appropriate casting)? Let's say there were talented girls of color who auditioned, then I theoretically support the move. But if not, which is also likely, then I absolutely do not. This is a high school not a professional theater or movie. |
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| re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback': WARNING--VERY LONG | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 06:03 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' - Chazwaza 04:50 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
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| As BruceinIthaca, I suppose it makes sense for me to chime in! Let me start by saying that I have no connection with the high school nor any real knowledge (except second or third hand) of any of the players. My sense, based on what I have heard from the interstices of colleagues who have or have had children in the public schools, is that there was a particular student actress who a number of people (students and parents) thought was a natural fit for Esmeralda, if what is meant by "natural fit" is an alignment of the ethnicity of the character and of the performer (an issue much under dispute far beyond Cayuga's waters, to say the least). The student, I have been told, is of Indian descent and, as it turns out (this I did not know before the issue came up), the Romany people (or Gypsies, as we no longer call them and was always a false etymology, based on the assumption that these people originally came from Egypt) also originated in India and migrated elsewhere. I can't say 100% that I have characterized the student's ethnicity correctly, but I do think that it was not simply a case of saying any "non-white" actress should be cast in the role. Some of the confusion comes from a quote from an African American (or she may have more complicated ethnic heritage than that) who quit the show (before it was canceled) saying something like she saw that this heater was not for people like her. My guess is that she meant that in a broader sense--that she felt the casting decision--a European-heritaged, blonde student in a role of someone of a very different heritage--communicated a sense of exclusion for her. Ironically, the first time I saw an IHS production was 25 years ago, when the school did "Into the Woods," and an African American student played the Witch (quite memorably)--my now-husband's daughter, of Jewish-American (Ashkenazi branch) heritage was Little Red. That there was a black actress playing the Witch was unremarkable, as everyone agreed she was had extraordinary talent and, well, it was Ithaca (and Phylicia Rashad had played the role on Broadway by then--it was before the revival with Vanessa Williams as the Witch). So, we seem to be in a historical moment that feels both "woke" and "regressive" in some ways simultaneously. As posters on another site have pointed out, in Hugo's novel (though not in the Disney film or play, IIRC), it turns out that Esmeralda was a foundling, and there is reason to think that she was born to a French mother (and, yes, I know there can be French women of color, but I don't think that was the case in the novel--it's been a decade or two since i read it). And there is a suggestion, some have said, that Quasimodo was "not-white," in the terms of the time and culture in which Hugo's novel is set. So, it may be that, if we go back to the novel (and I realize we aren't, as the Disney version is itself, in my opinion, such a bastardization of Hugo's dense, complex, sweeping novel), we might worry more about a white Quasimodo! Of course, no one has focused on another issue, which seems to me as deserving of discussion as this piece of casting (assuming people think this one rises to controversy): was any effort made to cast or at least attract to audition disabled actors to play the role of Quasimodo. No, I'm not saying they should have scoured the hallways for a "hunchback" (a term that I am sure is now rightly considered offensive in its own way), but disability art activists could reasonably argue that there are very few roles for disabled performers and that, even if there wasn't an actor with the exact same impairment, living and identifying and being treated as a person with a disability may cross specific disabilities (what, in disability studies, is sometimes called "cross-disability identification"). There doesn't seem to have been a hue and cry over that. I myself, as someone who works in both performance studies and disability studies, feel so torn on such issues. I do understand that performers who do not inhabit normative identities (whether based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability) have less access to both actor training (I've heard horror stories like wheelchair-using students being told to do a handstand as part of an audition for an MFA program that wanted to exclude even considering them, and that seems despicable to me) and employment (or amateur participation). Ironically (sorry, I know I am overusing the word), the director castigated for this casting directed a middle school production of "Babes in Arms" about ten years or so ago, which I saw because one of my colleagues' daughter had the lead. It was one of those productions where an effort was made to include everyone who wanted to be onstage, and this included a Deaf girl, who actually was given a line or two (the equivalent of a chorus role) and signed the line in ASL (I think a hearing actor spoke the line for her). So, I feel for the director, though I know nothing about him other than these two instances. I can't believe he set out to create a crisis, and the call for him to be removed as director of all plays at the high school seems hasty to me. Of course, there's always other narratives at play. The individual the students are demanding be hired as play director is a local, a graduate of IC, who stayed in town (he may have left for awhile), and now runs a youth theatre group called Running to Places, that typically stages musicals, using students from many of the local communities, including ones with smaller or nonexistent theatre programs. I would assume that some of those calling for the firing of the current director and for the hiring of Joey Steinhaugen (the head of Running to Places) have participated in RTP productions. I'm not suggesting that they have made this issue as big as it has become in order to get the RTP director hired (I'm not THAT cynical), but, rather, they have had positive experiences with RTP and genuinely believe its director would serve the high school better. And the mother of one of the leaders of the protest runs an acting studio in Ithaca (yes, even Tiny Town has an acting studio) based on Meisner Principles. I attended a workshop of scenes from the studio years ago, as one of my students (I don't teach in the Theatre Department) was performing and she invited me to see her work. My former student was very enthusiastic about the studio and she has gone on to do network series work (including Robin Williams' last sitcom). But combining helicopter parents, students sincerely wanting to see social justice (on their terms) in the arts, an the usual mishegas that all artists tend to bring (myself included, in my own very minor way) created a perfect storm. That's the saga, as best as I know it. If I have gotten any parts of it wrong, it's not out of malice. And I'm still trying to figure out how to balance competing beliefs: social justice and opportunity for historically underused artists whose voices and experiences bring much to the table (and who, as students, deserve opportunities they may have been denied in the past and may feel they are being denied now) and my belief that one of the great value and powers of performance is the opportunity to place yourself empathically and experientially into the lives and feelings of people you are not like. It may be that the politics currently win out over what I might call the psychological/developmental--and I'd like to think there is a way to serve both. I recall, when I was a high school student in a Chicago suburb (and was in shows with such folk as Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Dan Castellaneta, Kathy Griffin, the ballerina Helene Alexopoulos, the novelist Jane Hamilton, the sculptor Peter Lane, and others--this was a heterogenous public school), there was a very talented African American actress, who auditioned for our production of "You Can't Take It With You." In 1972, the director felt he couldn't cast her as Rheba, especially without another black actor to play Donald--so she wasn't cat at all. The following year, another director (we had four drama teachers! imagine that today in a public high school) directed the non-musical version of "Meet Me in St. Louis." He case the black actress as the maid Katie (Irish in the original). The student gathered her courage and told the director she just couldn't play the role--that her people had played enough maids. To his credit, he asked the student playing the nosy next-doer-neighbor (not a character in the film) if she would switch roles, and she did. This led to a situation where the black actress' character had a visiting cousin, played by a white male student. I recall a couple of students making snide comments about that--even as "unawake" as I was then, I felt shame for those students. The black actress, after this experience, formed her own mime troupe, which did wonderful work, in the small studio theatre. But the fact that her takeaway was that she had to make her own theatrical space (and a silent one at that, though I suspect that was as much a function of her interest in movement and perhaps the sense in mime that realism was not required) was one I regret, though I admired her for it. Forty years later, I returned to the high school, to see their current production of "You Can't Take It With You" (I had played Mr. Kirby in 1972) with the actress who had played Penny and the white actress who had played Rheba. This was before the most recent Broadway revival. Grandpa was played by a wonderful African American actor, Rheba by a young woman of Latina heritage, and Olga Katrina by an actress who had actually grown up in one of the former Soviet countries! Things had changed, to say the least (and their production was better than ours, I have to admit). Sorry for the length. But this whole incident has made me feel my age and the sense of history not necessarily always moving in clearly progressive ways--rather a set of waves and returns. Will we ever get it "right"--whatever "right" means--that's the rub. |
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| re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback': WARNING--VERY LONG | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 07:16 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback': WARNING--VERY LONG - BruceinIthaca 06:03 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
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| Apologies for numerous typos. I meant "African American student," not just "African American": I am aware of the dangers and offenses of turning adjectives into nouns (I hate the term "the gay," for example, even though my fellow alumna Kathy Griffin uses it with genuine endearment--I knew her prom date, who was one of "the gays"). And it's "Steinhagen," not "Steinhaugen." |
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| re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback': WARNING--VERY LONG | |
| Posted by: bmc 06:12 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback': WARNING--VERY LONG - BruceinIthaca 06:03 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
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| Very long post, yes, but very informative. Thanks very much. | |
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| re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' | |
| Posted by: bmc 05:47 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' - Chazwaza 04:50 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
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| Gypsy now preferred name Romany...often persecuted ...aka Travellers...I remember when JP II hosted a special mass for Romany at St Peter's in Rome....But Romany are Caucasian., more or less..Since it's high school you could go with Non-traditional casting. but the NON trad would be, Asian, black etc...........Also(forgive for being too lazy to look it up)What does WOKE mean, It's obviously using a grammatically incorrect tense for a particular New meaning. In the Chas Laughton film, Esmeralda was the beautiful and very Caucasian and Very Irish actress Maureen O'Hara. | |
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| re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' | |
| Posted by: WWriter 07:37 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' - bmc 05:47 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
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| My understanding of woke is that a person who is woke is aware of the existence of racism, sexism, etc, and how the isms affect people's lives; understands that white men don't run things because they're better or smarter but because they've set up the world that way; and gets it that people who have suffered from bigotry are tired of it! I've linked to a list of definitions that are so wonderfully subjective that they are perfect reminders how much we see the world from different sets of eyes. My own 2 cents, for what it's worth (probably not even 2 cents): it's great that people are fighting for what they want and what they believe in, but it's a very short slippery slope to censorship. It's like when the Whitney hung a painting of Emmet Till painted by a white woman; the people who protested had every right to do so. But when they tried to get the Whitney to take the painting down and even destroy it, they went waaaaaay too far. The Whitney did neither. |
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| Link | Different Opinions on What Woke Means |
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| re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 08:10 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' - WWriter 07:37 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
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| I agree--protests are as American as cherry pie and, when done without shutting down the other side, can produce important dialogue and the possibility of a better future. But the step into censorship can happen too easily. | |
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| re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' | |
| Posted by: fidelio1010 06:46 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Woke Students Shut Down A High School Production Of 'Hunchback' - bmc 05:47 pm EST 02/06/18 | |
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| Thats why they call it ACTING. | |
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