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.

Exactly. If done well it can be marvellous but most efforts I’ve seen have been jarring and distracted from the production.

Absolutely my point!!

I think so - this time with Dame Harriet Walter.

She was in them before, as Prospero, Brutus and Henry IV.

While I am supportive of the message that new work and creativity is important, I feel this is not really relevant to the complaints here.

Part of the complaint here is that people are sick of DEI casting being presented as new and innovative and creative when it’s just become repetitive and boring and cliched. It’s lazy and overdone.

And was frighteningly good in all, especially as Brutus.

There is room for everything in 'art'. These days there is no shortage of information available in advance and if you don't think you will enjoy the mixture of gender/ethnicity etc then don't go.

For example I've had two experiences with 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. The first was when I went to a performance that was done by a repertory theatre many years ago. I went to one of their plays and it was fab but I did wonder how the black female actor would work in the following weeks performance of TIOBE but actually I didn't really notice. And then the performance with Ncuiti Gatwa in cinemas, I had heard various things about the colour blind casting and the campness of this. So i went knowing it might not be my kind of thing. Actually I enjoyed it although I found the bit after the end a bit OTT. But if I hadn't enjoyed it - well so what, I'm sure others did.

There’s room for all sorts of things and I’ve enjoyed all sorts of innovative productions over the years but I choose to draw my personal line at a man in Six, its not for me.

im voting with my money now

I went to the Crucible a couple of years ago and they had a man playing a woman’s role, that doesn’t bother me at all but this man was being his own version of womanhood which was so overtly sexual I felt like I was part of his fetish. It’s not for me and I won’t support it financially, others might like it.

There is room for everything in 'art'.

There IS room for everything in art, but the issue becomes when the Arts Council spends millions of taxpayers money on projects that don't appeal to/ attract a good audience. Not every show has to be commercially successful, but on balance the economy isn't strong enough to totally bankroll the arts so there needs to be a balance between what people want to see vs. the diversity-led project directors and companies seem to produce, and recent research seems to suggest these are at odds with one another.

Yes, the funding issue is really important. If scarce resources are funding arts, we have to ask ourselves what we are paying for. Is art just a vehicle for making society fairer? I'd say, absolutely not. If taxpayers want a fairer society, there are many other ways to achieve that. Imo funding should go to making great art that might not be commercial.

I am a big supporter of colour blind casting and have no time for the "this person would not have looked like that" line of argument. Saw Denzel Washington in a Shakespeare production - he was amazing. Most film and theatre productions favour white men so it is good to see that grip being loosened. However, there are times when it seems overly performative - I am thinking of the Anne Boleyn portrayal - where the stuff trotted out to justify it just sounded like total BS.

Would you apply that across the board though? Say there was a film made of 'A Suitable Boy', by Vikram Seth. Would you not think 'this person would not have looked like that' if they cast a white person as Lata? To me it would just ruin the whole thing. Shakespeare with colour-blind casting makes sense if it is a production not set in Shakespearean times (e.g. Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, or one of the many vaguely post-apocalyptic productions of Macbeth).

The whole concept of 'colour blind' casting is a misnomer though, because it rarely is colour blind (they call Bridgerton colour blind but it's not at all - the casting is very deliberate). It actually just means 'casting that ignores or alters the historical context' and is an excuse for not having to think carefully about whether they have cast the character in a way that makes sense for the production as a whole.

I also honestly don't think this is true any more. If you look at current theatre productions in London white men are very underrepresented.

Good points and more articulate than my post I think! As someone who, earlier in life, wanted to be an actor, and as a woman, I am acutely aware of the disadvantage women face - fewer parts, more restrictions etc etc. I see how that affects actors who are PoC. So I think anything which gives them more access to parts is a good thing - why shouldnt Maxine Peake play a Shakespearean hero? I have played a well known male detective because I was the strongest performer in the group, and it went down very well.

I recently went to a production featuring mermaids, one of whom was male, and a sea witch. The witch character was voiced by one of the singers who put a veil over her head and spoke the words while he acted them out and it was jarring - it really did feel like it was done to show right on-ness and not because it fit the production needs.
I would like to see a point where the best actor gets the part, and more productions that dont just look through a white male lens but try to look at all aspects of experience. I have loved watching The Gilded Age and learning about the black elite - a group I knew nothing about. I also think its great to see PoC get the chance to do period pieces without being stuffed into a few types of role.

l think trying toobey the Great God Wokery in the Arts has now become a laughing stock

Of course we need genuine representation and inclusion. But sometimes it seens like driving a squarw rid into a round hole. It hust wont fit.

A lot of Arts Orgs rely on Charitable Donations abd Governent grants and need to tick the right WOKE boxes

So often have to tailor their productions to work around this obstacles.

To me Wokism is for sad, cowardly type people who cant think orc speak for themselves and join up to feel superior. And look down on other people.

I'm in two minds about this. I'm a proud lefty. But I think this has gone too far.
I'm all for talent, not lifestyle.
Then again, I wonder how many working class get far in acting? Not many by the looks of it. Also, I wouldn't give a job to anyone who uses the word woke in the wrong context.
I don't want some right wing nut poisoning the atmosphere.

I don't really see how the actor having whatever pronouns affects the performance? Or do you mean they've got too many characters who are meant to be NB etc? I could see that getting annoying if they feel shoehorned in for no reason.

I think it's great there are more POC in theatre as they were very underrepresented for a long time. And there needs to be more roles written for POC, or at least roles where they could be cast.

But if people are meant to be full siblings, for example, it looks ridiculous if they are visibly completely different races to eachother.

Colour blind casting works fine in theatre, the characters aren’t always meant to be a true likeness, it’s about how the perform. Same goes for other casting discrepancies like age and sex (panto dames etc).

In film and TV it just doesn’t work imo and it’s really distracting and jarring when the casting is off

Years ago, I might have agreed with you, just the same as years ago I thought that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Experience has broadened and enriched my life.

I was lucky enough to see Kathryn Hunter play King Leah and, quite honestly, it was a fantastic performance and her sex was irrelevant. I can’t explain why but it really was. She inhabited the persona of King Leah and I was enthralled.

Also, many years ago, I saw a very disabled but gifted actor in a play about King Haile Selassie at the Royal Court Theatre. Throughout the first five minutes I was thoroughly confused until I worked out that the fact that he was in a wheelchair had no relevance to the plot. It was a great evening of magical theatre. Having checked online, I think that this play was “The Emperor“, and funnily enough, it seems that Kathryn Hunter also sometimes takes the central role in that, too.

I very much regret not seeing Matthew Bourne’s all male Swan Lake when it first was performed.

i’m fairly sure that I once saw a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream where they were all sitting on a giant feather. I enjoyed that. Whilst it’s true that as far as I recall, the sexes weren’t played around with in that production, it’s a similar sort of idea.

I heard on the Kermode and Mayo podcast that in the new Hamlet (not Ham n et) play, Riz Ahmed delivers the To be, or not to be speech in a car chase. Fantastic. Even though Riz Ahmed is not Danish.

I think all these changes in fact help you get to what the heart of the work is about because they make sure that you detach what you see from what you think.

So no. I don’t agree with you.

Colour-blind casting is a bit of a misnomer, isn't it, as it only works in one direction - I've never seen a white or Asian Othello. There are many productions where (IMO) casting people from a wide range of ethnicities works really well, but doing this removes race as a theme from the play altogether. Hence why, in Othello, it's important not only to have a black Othello but also no other black characters - as racism against Othello is one of the central themes of the play and it just wouldn't be comprehensible if, say, Iago was black too.

I was lucky enough to see Kathryn Hunter play King Leah...

Did they actually change the character’s name to King Leah because a woman was playing the part?

We went to one where Aladdin was a girl. Ruined it.

I suspect the pp saw the Matthew Bourne / New Adventures version.

I think it depends how it is done but agree suspension of disbelief is different in live theatre. But I really really want to see PoC and women having access to a wider variety of roles because at the moment the range on offer is pretty pitiful with traditional casting. One of the joys of performing for me is building the character, make up, costume, gait, accent, etc etc. Its been brilliant to see something like Bridgerton (not everyones cup of tea, I know) and see people having a chance to play regency characters which probably would not come their way otherwise.

I agree OP, it is really boring and mundane. I understand the need to offer opportunity but I find it lacks authenticity. I struggle to engage with what entertainment is put out nowadays, the acting lacks substance and grit and the scripts are naff.