absolutely fed up with theatre casting wokery for the sake of it

[grumpyandiknowit]

I'm so fed up with every single theatre company and production house straining to make theatre that forces into everything DEI, LGBTQI, race and left wing politics.

Casting now disproportionately represents all minorities out of all comparison with the population. As an example, feels like every single play will have a least one transgender member of the cast and one who is using 'they' pronouns and one person with a visible disability. This feels like forced tick-box quotas to me even in the acting world.

I just saw that Jonathan Groff who I've seen on stage many times and I think is fantastic is going to be in the new RSC season so eagerly went to look and it turns out he is playing a female character Rosalind in an all male production of As You Like It. I really don't want to see that and I was so disappointed. I know that this was how productions were traditionally performed but that's not what this is about it is it? It's about being seen to be promoting DEI constantly without actually looking for the best actors for the role. I think the fact this is so noticeable speaks for itself. If you went to the theatre and all the actors were brilliant and there was no casting that jarred with the meaning of the play, you'd never notice.

I just want to go and see some normal classic theatre where constantly men aren't being played by women, women aren't being played by men and where the real themes aren't being over ridden by politics forced into the play by casting decisions taken not because of talent or ability but because someone wants to demonstrate how modern and woke their production is. All too often the impact on the story and the real themes of a classic drama isn't thought through.

Maybe I'm alone but I'm fed up with it.

They should have cast Clem Fandango as Heathcliff and found a slightly wimpy blond man (as i imagined him to be when i read the book aged 16) to play Linton 😁

I know what you're getting at you don't know what I am. Men taking every role is just men. Not D E or I.

@MrsTerryPratchett - yes I understood the point you were making that it is cutting out all women from casting in that play which is discriminatory against women. I disagree that deciding (for example) to make a cast all gay or all transgender men could never be considered a DEI initiative or (as here) to cast a gay man in a woman's role.

There are plenty of productions as you describe. Just go and see those if the others bother you
Personally I think theatre should be about innovation and diversity so I enjoy all types of productions.
I loved Maxine Peak as Hamlet, Helen Mirren as Prospero and the all male version of twelfth might starring Mark Rylance from 2013.
I also enjoy traditional versions.of Shakespeare.
It doesn't have to be either/or

In general I disagree. I like productions that play around with casting just like other ideas. Last time I looked we weren’t short of Shakespeare productions. I enjoy seeing different slants and ideas in theatre, it’s one of the reasons I go, and if the director and the cast think it says something worth saying, fine. I think an all-male production of anything is a perfectly reasonable choice to make.

It can be done badly, for sure. I have no problem with criticising execution, ideas, casting or acting that appear not to work, or where two separate things that both, individually, could have been good, conflict unhelpfully (can’t think of an example).

If something jars, first stop for me is to think why I’m feeling that way, and then to see if I can work out why it’s been done, or what resonances it has for me. I can imagine for example that a lot of conflicts of Shakespeare’s time might be quite opaque to us, and will become visible again with creative casting - eg two Dukes from families who pre-Tudor were on opposite sides of the Wars of the Roses - we probably wouldn’t even be aware of that, but casting decisions could bring out some of it to us again.

It is happening in all the arts. Recently published books, there is always someone shoehorned in to tick a companies quota. Transfriend. White couple with a daughter called Indira or such like. It jars because it is manufactured equalities- not real. Or every tv ad. There is rarely a white couple, it is invariably a mixed race couple. If you were to tune in from abroad you would swear it was the law in the UK to be in a mixed race couple.

Develop things that are truly trying to bring forth other talent. Like Mr Loverman, an excellent black cast. That is the type of inclusivity that should be promoted. That was a riveting series. But when I see tick box casting I turn off - can think of Shetland, set in those far flung isles, suddenly the big boss is an Asian female, and now it’s a black guy. It is so jarring and stupid casting.

If there was a televising of a black icon or character like Mandela, if a white man was cast, can you imagine the ruckus?

I have a novel coming out later this year, and every single character is white and heterosexual and is the sex they've been since birth. No one has suggested I give my protagonist a Nigerian best friend or a trans nephew.

I agree with you. However, I'd find an all male cast for a Shakespeare play ok if it was performed in traditional dress and aiming to replicate how the play would actually have been performed in Shakespeare's day.

Having a random part switch in an otherwise standard performance along with actors that seem to be there just to fulfil colour, disability, sexuality tick boxes, rather than acting ability, has been annoying for quite some time.

There are plenty of productions as you describe. Just go and see those if the others bother you

There aren't though not in terms of main stream professional theatre. That is my whole point. Every single production has forced casting for the sake of it.

Personally I think theatre should be about innovation and diversity so I enjoy all types of productions.

This is not what I am talking about at all. I am talking about looking at the entire cast - seeing again and again not particularly good actors who meet specific criteria being forced into a role. So there has to be a transgender person, there has to be person with visible disability, there has to be a woman in a mans role, there has to be a disproportionate representation of non-whites in the cast whatever the effect on the play and whatever the abilities of the actors.

Jonathan Groff is a great actor, and admittedly this casting probably not the best example of what I'm talking about, but I was so disapointed and it was just symbolic to me of a wider problem of this woke-fest in theatre that is everywhere.

@FedUpandFiftyNine wrote:

DS has twice got through to a final round of London theatre auditions only to be told (later, off record) that the casting director wanted to offer him the role but had been told in the final stages that they had to choose a black actor instead.

That is tragic and unsurprising as it fits with what you see on stage now all the time. The actor's characteristics are more important to cast than their ability.

Good @WellHardly Maybe the tide is turning. Is AI a thing yet in publishing? Making authors redundant like a lot of jobs.

@grumpyandiknowit I know what you mean

And because it runs through everything, it feels like it's jumped the shark... which is probably not the right way to express it, but I don't know how to say it

I'm a woman of colour

I completely understand that if you've got someone who you think will do a brilliant job being Hamlet or Joan Watson, you're going to go with that.

But it's now more than 15 years since we had Lucy Liu cast as Watson. Sorry to use the television example when you're talking about theatre. But now it's like casting that way for the sake of it. It seems to affect every creative medium and it doesn't make sense

Someone gave the example of Jane Seymour's sister being played by a black actor and that jarred with me as well. I don't normally get confused when I'm watching television. But I did have some moments of confusion with that character.

It has to be done in a way that makes sense, I suppose?

I think the recent production of Ballet Shoes also had this.

In theory I can get into London for theatre very easily. In practice, a lot of stuff feels like the same old same old. And doing some kind of political casting feels out of date now.

as you've been very brave starting this thread, mum and I agreed with that lady who said that white people aren't represented enough in adverts. I appreciate this bound to be swings and roundabouts, but we are definitely in an unhelpful space at the moment.

TFL had an advert about using headphones and not playing music out loud. This was represented by a man in his 60s or 70s playing his music out loud antisocially. Sorry, but that just doesn't work. I'm sure they didn't want to label young people. But most of us looked at it and just thought WTF.

Use cartoon characters if you must, like cartoon stick people who don't have a skin colour.

I do feel very resentful because I think the DEI brigade have put us in an awful position.

sorry that's in danger of turning into a wider rant.

There is an organisation called "freedom in the arts" but they don't seem to be getting much traction.

I have never seen an actor with a disability or different skin colour to me put in a bad performance. To suggest that they have been cast for box ticking is ignorant and offensive. I don’t think you should be posting in a group about culture.

Agree. If you think about say, Bridgerton (which I am of course aware is not theatre!) it depicts a society where wealth was to a great extent based on savage colonial exploitation - yet purports to place people of colour in the place of the exploiters.

It whitewashes colonialism & economic exploitation.

I entirely get the point about the lack of roles for certain demographics - but what I would take from this is that yet another costume drama set in high society is not needed! Why not instead, say, produce a series that focuses on life on (perhaps) a sugar plantation in Demerara (particularly brutal I believe) from the point of view of the slaves? Or a romance set in the Nigerian Empire in its heyday? Why not create a genuinely diverse and interesting piece of entertainment, rather than a ahistorical pastiche which conceals the brutal realities of history?

This is clearly a very personal thing. I went to see " Ballet Shoes" and loved it. Blonde, blue-eyed Pauline was played by a non-white actress, but she was fantastic and it took nothing away from the play. I can well believe she was the best for the role. There were other non-white actors, all excellent.

On the other hand, the dance teacher Madame Fidolia was played by a man. Which seemed pretty unnecessary. He was ok but nothing special.

@CharlotteRumpling it was the dance teacher casting that made me groan and decide not to see it - to be fair, it's got to be a hell of a production for me to bother getting on the train these days. I don't like going into London if I can avoid it.

But that one thing makes me think "what else have they done to it that is going to bug me?" I actually didn't know about Pauline.

As You Like It is about cross dressing tbf… Rosalind spends the majority of the play dressed as a man.

Healthcliff was never defined - he was compared to a Spaniard, a Lascar and a Gypsey in the book and referred to as swarthy. The man who plays him in the film is half basque which did well with ‘Spaniard’ so I don’t see the issue. Their love was star crossed because of class and the implication they were possibly half siblings as well as race.

Totally and 100% agree with you.

Another time I went to the ballet to see Swan Lake. Turns out it was a 'modern re-telling' where it was a gay love story and the costumes were made to look like jeans and tshirt. I beg of you, why?! I don't book Swan Lake to see dancers leaping around in jean-like lycra. I want tutus and sequins!

It is pretty easy to to ascertain before booking tickets whether a production is going to be modern-dress/otherwise unconventional, or trad tutus and sequins.

Completely agree OP. It’s not just theatre either

I think it's a deep structural problem, and not solvable by shoehorning in people from underrepresented groups.
So rather than having things like, as someone has mentioned, a black woman playing Jane Seymour's sister in yet another production about Tudor times, there should be more writers/directors/artistic directors etc seeking out/writing/putting on stories from traditions other than the white Western canon.
Places in London like the Kiln and the National are slowly changing the make-up of what's available at the theatre, which is encouraging. It's a very slow process though.

I do see some of what you’re talking about on TV but surely an all male production of a Shakespeare play is as they were performed originally?

After all, if a woman were to play Rosalind where would she put the coconuts? 😉

"It is a huge problem that no one is grappling with because I think the core audiences are fed up with this. You can't make truly diverse theatre at all unless you have money. If the core audiences stop going then it will have a dwindling income stream."

The core audience in most regional theatres is there to see the pantomime. It's the lifeblood of UK theatres providing about 50% of the money that keeps their lights on. Women playing cats, men dressed as women and who knows/cares who in the back half of the horse.

The premise of this thread ignores the suspension of disbelief that is absolutely central to enjoyment of all theatre.

A man in a traditional all male production is nothing to do with diversity. I know what you are getting at but it just isn't a good example.

Er, I'm very excited about the all-male As You Like It, and will be booking to see it. And, OP, of course it isn't "wokery", it's exactly how it would have been performed 400 years ago!
The RSC are also doing an all-female Julius Caesar, so that does address any complaints about men always getting all the good parts.
Honestly, it's not a big deal - I see a lot of theatre and I've stopped worrying about male/female (or race). And this isn't just for Shakespeare...... watch Operation Mincemeat and it's a hilarious jumble of characters which audiences love, and nobody cares that Ian Fleming is played by a woman and Hester Leggatt by a man, it's simply funny (and touching). All it takes is a little bit of imagination!

Where to put the coconuts is an underrated problem.