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.

A man is not part of an underrepresented group.

I agree that As You Like It isn't a good example, but all the parts would've been played by men in any Shakespeare play. So that gets complicated!

I think that was because Mme Fidolia doubled up as Great Uncle Matthew! But it was a wonderful production (which made me cry), and the actor in question was great. Sorry, I forget his name, but it never occurred to me to doubt his playing of Madame.

Yes, I agree, more so in TV and film than theatre. It’s tick-boxing, usually. The worst case was in the recent TV adaptation of
The Mirror and the Light, just couldn’t watch it despite loving the previous production of the two earlier books. But money talks, and some of these production’s wouldn’t get made without tick box casting.

Did anyone watch One Day? It was spoilt by Ambika Mod’s miscasting.

A report came out recently pointing out how wrong colour blind casting can be, I’ll try and find it.

An all-male cast is surely a throwback almost 500 years? It’s hardly progress, is it? You’re right OP.

Is that right? G.U.M was fantastic. I just didn't feel the need to make Fidolia a man, given men are not underrepresented.

I agree that it was a great production overall.

Indeed. Hong Chau and Shazad Latif are very talented actors, but wrong for their roles here. Just the way it is, though, these days.

I liked the casting of James Howson in Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation of WH.

I don't understand, sorry.

Did anyone watch One Day? It was spoilt by Ambika Mod’s miscasting.
I haven't seen it.

Do you mean she was miscast because she wasn't right for the role or good enough, or because of her colour?

The RSC are also doing an all-female Julius Caesar, so that does address any complaints about men always getting all the good parts.
That's a very serious attempt at redressing the balance, though, whereas an all-male As You Like It just means that men continue to get good roles.
Is it the same all-female Julius Caesar that Phyllida Lloyd and the Donmar did years ago?

Both. She was terrible as an actor and as a paring it didn't work. But it was Netflix making it, so...yeah. Money.

As a pairing as in there was no chemistry, or do you mean because she's brown? (and is there a reason in the story that she shouldn't be brown?)

Someone like the Leo Woodall character, at that time and at that university, wouldn’t have looked twice at that version of Emma.

Thank you. I don't know the book or TV show so have no idea of the context.

You mean Scottish Ballet's Cinderella? It wasn't difficult to follow the story of Cinders as a young man who goes to a ball and meets a princess. It wasn't a man playing a woman's role nor a woman playing a man's. I guess their fabulous production of Mary, Queen of Scots last year would have completely blown your mind.

Is OP complaining because an all-male production of As You Like It includes a male Rosalind? Or is she complaining about an all-male production?

Oh no it isn't!

<Sorry, just had to> 😂

Madame Fidolia being played by a man drove me absolutely mad. She’s a strong, respected older woman, and I felt it turned her into a joke. Didn’t mind the colour-blind casting of the girls, though I hated the production overall (totally a me problem - I love the book too much and found it almost unbearable watching it being messed about with on stage! I shouldn’t have gone, someone else bought the tickets).

Greater diversity on stage I think is generally a good thing if it broadens the opportunities open to actors, and theatre’s all about suspension of disbelief anyway so it’s fine. I struggle a bit more on television, though it feels awful to acknowledge as I totally get the paucity of parts available to non-white actors otherwise. Something like Bridgerton which is creating a fantasy universe of its own is fine.

But the new Netflix Pride and Prejudice, which I was really looking forward to, is frustrating because you have to apply that same suspension of disbelief to a medium that’s supposed to offer realism. If half the characters are played by people of a totally different ethnicity to those they plausibly would have had, it’s a bit distracting, and watching becomes a less immersive experience. But I feel uncomfortable admitting that I feel that even to myself!

Loved Ambika Mod in One Day though, I thought she was brilliant! The only thing race wise was that there was no acknowledgment of her heritage because the character was written as white, which felt a bit odd given how much of their back stories we get.

I think the issue is original material from other cultures doesn't get that big an audience, and stars are often less known. The new NT director is a Sri Lankan woman, Indu Rubasingham. I hope she puts on some original material, and does some appropriate casting.

My girl crush Sandra Oh is starring in The Misanthrope at the NT over the summer, which is great casting.

Yes, that's my point too. She's already put on/directed Anupama Chandrasekhar's The Father and the Assassin, Nima Taleghani's version of Bacchae and The Great Wave by Francis Turnly. Not to mention her previous work at the Kiln.

Agree op.

I saw Les Mis in London and they cast a white blonde girl as young Cosette, then adult Cosette was black.

I read the tripadvisor reviews after going and it pissed a lot of people off as some people didn’t actually know the story beforehand and didn’t know who adult Cosette was supposed to be for part of the story.

I also saw Cursed Child and the issue with the casting of Hermione is that she stood out because all the other characters looked like they did the in films.

Art is about experimentation and yes it also is often inclusive. Many artists are left wing shock! Why do you care?

If it’s done well, does it matter if someone is a different gender than the script, or a different race, or disabled? If they are talented and bring a new dimension to an old script, I welcome it! Otherwise we are just watching the same story told in the same way! Fresh eyes, new interpretations, reimagining a script is innovation. The producers and directors are artists too and they want to bring a fresh flavour to scripts. I’ve seen many men play women in many Shakespeares - not a big deal, it’s quite old fashioned in fact. Ruth Negga was the best Hamlet I have seen btw!

I came onto this thread to talk about this production of Cinderella. It ruined it for us. It just didn’t work with the “glass slipper”.

I also went to a non binary Dracula production where the main character had clearly been cast for theys skin colour rather than being the best person for the role. There were so many clearly more talented people in the cast. It was just beyond cringe and we struggled not to snigger at how bad the main character’s Scottish pronunciation was. It was like they were putting it on for comedy effect. Dreadful.

Don't mind colourblind casting in the theatre (unless it's really obvious people were hired for DEI rather than talent), but I do find it jarring on screen where all the costumes, sets etc are supposed to be realistic. It seems odd to faff about making the perfect sleeve on a dress you only see for a couple of minutes, then putting it on someone who very obviously could never have been wearing it. Though I imagine that may be changing times, and it'll be entirely normal to future audiences.

It does make me sad that we shove non-white people into white roles though rather than making non-European dramas. It seems such a lazy way to achieve 'diversity' and 'representation'; I'd personally love to see a historical drama set in the courts of Benin, or India, or Tenochtitlan - and I wouldn't expect to see a load of white people roaming about in costume! It doesn't sit right with me to have great famous white people played by non-white people, as if kids are watching and celebrating people like themselves being shown (which is often cited as the reason), aren't they going to be disappointed when they find out that person was actually white? Think it would be much better for children to grow up watching accurate representations of great historical figures who really did look like them.

Also really hate the weird women playing male roles trend, I just can't see the point at all. What's it supposed to tell us? I could understand basing a new play on old ones using a female viewpoint, but just having a woman wandering about pretending to be Julius Caesar? Why?! Less bothered by men in Shakespeare as it would have be how it was done, and especially in 'As You Like It' could give an insight into the text that we may miss with a woman. But with the current climate of woman-face, I think it's best to leave well alone - unless they're intending to be march into the trans debacle.