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.

The idea of a glass slipper is risible anyway. Were you also concerned that Cinders' parents owned a shop? It was a ballet of a fairy story, hardly the most lifelike representation of any situation.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Many years ago, Adventures in Motion Pictures Swan Lake with Adam Cooper ( a fantastic dancer) as lead was wonderful.

I mean, it's about swans becoming human and back again, I think there's a lot of leeway as to depiction of this utterly fantastical scenario.

ETA Or human/swan/human/swan

And may have originally been a fur slipper, so it could all be based on a falsehood anyway.

but just having a woman wandering about pretending to be Julius Caesar? Why?!
It is interesting and thought-provoking to see a woman playing a role written for a man, when that role is so much about his political acumen and power, which rightly or wrongly has long been more associated with men than with women.
And part of the point of the Phyllida Lloyd/Donmar productions (of this, The Tempest and Henry IV) was that they were workshopped with women prisoners; their experiences, opinions and stories were incorporated into the plays.

I agree with you - I find it annoying at times and yet really enjoyed watching Denzel Washington play MacBeth.

😂😂😂Er no. Just the fact that he hasn’t been wearing any pointe shoes so it just didn’t make any sense. fucking stupid.

there was a recent diversity report done for (I think the BBC?) which noted exactly this. Along with saying LGBTQplus representation was vastly overrepresented compared to UK stats whereas people with disabilities and older woman were vastly underrepresented.

I have to be honest none of this is something that really bugs me at the theatre. By the time you've suspended your disbelief that the painted wooden backdrop is supposed to be a castle, the 25 year old woman is supposed to be a child, that 2 roles are clearly performed by the same person, that it's normal for people to burst randomly into song or talk in iambic pentameter, etc., how an actor looks is way down the list of things to get worked up about.

I don't get what wearing or not wearing pointe shoes has to do with it?

but just having a woman wandering about pretending to be Julius Caesar? Why?!

Well, it's no odder than a man 'wandering about pretending to be Julius Caesar', surely? if you'd seen those Phyllida Lloyd Donmar all-woman productions, you'd be marvelling at how astonishing Harriet Walter is and thanking the universe you'd managed to see it. Just like seeing Simon Russell Beale in Hamlet or The Tempest or The Winter's Tale.

Ah the culture warriors are out again.

Because they went round trying a pointe shoe on everyone that Cinders never wore because he was played by a man. Do you not know the story?

It was incredibly confusing for many in the audience particularly elderly people who just wanted to watch the ballet at Christmas time. It really just didn’t work.

No. The culture warriors are this thing to force feed us this nonsense .

@latetothefisting there was a recent diversity report done for (I think the BBC?) which noted exactly this. Along with saying LGBTQplus representation was vastly overrepresented compared to UK stats whereas people with disabilities and older woman were vastly underrepresented
I think this is a natural consequence of younger generations being obsessed with representation. The idea that everyone should be able to see someone that they 'identify' with. Of course when we all can have so many identifies based on our sex, sexuality, race, religion, age etc then it gets very messy very quickly. Inevitably the squeaky wheel gets the oil so we see a disproportionate amount of some groups which means some other less fashionable groups will be underrepresented. Big suprise that older women once again are sacrificed on the alter on everyone else feeling seen and heard. Misogynistic thinking at it's finest.

I saw The Father and the Assassin at NT.
Acting was a bit uneven, but the play itself was fascinating. For those who haven't seen it, it's about Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, a deeply complex man.

This is what I would like to see more as a brown person, more original stories from my heritage, rather than shoehorning a brown actor in. That said, so many stories about PoC don't find
a wider audience, so theatre, publishing, films all stick to a no risk strategy..Doing yet another Tudor play! ( I love the Tudors but let's have other stuff too).

Yes, thank you, I know the story of the slipper being left behind and tried on everyone. I just hadn't thought through the implications of it being a man's shoe and not a woman's pointe shoe.
I'd imagine that from a lot of seats, certainly up in the gods (where I always sit), the exact form of the shoe wouldn't have been visible anyway. Surely people can apply their imaginations/knowledge of that plot point?

As an aside, having a male Cinderella/Cinders is not entirely new or modern 'wokery'; there was a production in the 1920s with a man (Prince Cinders).

so many stories about PoC don't find a wider audience, so theatre, publishing, films all stick to a no risk strategy
That's the problem, isn't it – it's a cycle and it's hard to break. I suppose one has to hope that, in the case of the National at least, more audiences and more perhaps 'conservative' audiences will get used to seeing stories about people of all kinds and start to go to see them in increasing numbers and expect/demand them.

I’ve just told you that it was confusing for people.

Well the theory seems to be we have this "woke" casting is for diversity. There's no diversity problem with white men getting roles.

Well that's me telt
Another poster has said that it wasn't hard to follow, so <<shrug>>

I wasn't talking about white men I mentioned a black woman playing Jane Seymour's sister and traditions other than the white Western canon.

This.

If you think the best actor should be cast, then an all male cast should be exactly what you’re looking for. As you point out, this is also how the play was written to be cast.

It sounds like you do want DEI, but with conditions applied to it?

i presume you’re being ironic/sarcastic. .

Very true.

I remember a boyfriend who didn't like Richard Chamberlain being my pin up (yes I'm old). He thought he was being clever bringing up the then rumours of RC being gay (more of an issue in the 70s). I laughed at him and said I was hardly likely to meet him let alone get into anything intimate with him even if he wasn't gay.

Theatre/film etc is all about suspending daily life and entering the fantasy. So what if a heartthrob is gay or Julius Caesar is a woman.

The thread is supposed to be about a man being cast as a woman. Obviously the undertones are actually about colour as there is no DEI casting of white men.

The thread has evolved and is talking about DEI characteristics.