Dylan Mulvaney cast as Anne Boleyn

[dementedpixie]

Came up on fb and thought it was satire to start with! Would put me off going to see it tbh

I think if a production is trading off having an all woman cast, then they actually do have an obligation to cast a woman. With which I suspect those responsible for the casting would most probably agree.
The contention lies in the fact that their definition of woman includes men. They have cast DM, not because they are exercising their right to cast a man, but because they think a TIM 'counts' as a woman.
Its no more 'unhinged' that GC people criticise this than any other instance where TIM are conflated with women, because its the thinking behind it that's the issue.

I said upthread that as far as I know Six has never had a sort of ‘top billing’ situation like this - please tell me someone if I’m wrong about that. So that the first time they go for stunt casting with a famous name, in the role people will recognise the most, it’s Mulvaney, it does look like they’re making a statement with it - and it’s not an inoffensive one given the whole point of the show.

🤮

Thank you, and fair enough. But US culture is not relevant in this instance. 'Six' is based on English history (very well-known history, as well) so a transwoman playing Anne Boleyn makes no sense whatsoever, carries no message and just insults women in general and Anne Boleyn in particular. That she is dead and has no say doesn't make it any better, either, but worse.

Silly little wims, getting ourselves all hot and bothered over a trivial casting issue.

Except you might want to look at what happened when Scarlett Johansson was cast as a trans woman - and then tell me who's unhinged.

Or have a little think about what might happen if a white man was cast as Martin Luther King. How well do you think that would go down, eh?

Enough with the gaslighting.

It's relevant to Hamilton though. I was discussing race in Hamilton as a comparator to sex in SIX and explaining why the cross race casting in Hamilton works but this particular cross sex casting for SIX doesn't.

Cross race casting is the concept Hamilton was written around and it works. The audience is supposed to see it and think about it.

I agree that this Broadway (also US) casting of a trans woman man into a play built around specific women from British history, where the concept is that women whose well known stories have in reality been written by people other than themselves and predominantly by men get to take back their own stories, doesn't.

How can it, when the audience knows it's a man but isn't supposed to be clever enough to think about how Amne being a man would have totally changed the story?

Not RTFT.

AB has probably the least vocally challenging role.

One comment I saw under this said that women's roles were played by men in Tudor times. 1) there were a lot of things women couldn't do in those days, that doesn't make it ok and 2) I don't think DM would find that as supportive as you think it is, given he thinks he IS a woman.

The comment that did tip me over the edge was "cis women gatekeeper the experience of womanhood". That's my villain origin story.

Dylan M is an absolute theatre kid, jazz-hands and all that. I’m sure they’ll be absolutely fine dragged up as a Tudor Queen and belting out the tunes. I’m not a fan of musicals myself but I think Dylan’s vaudevillian cheesiness will be right at home. Of course it’s a travesty that a ‘girl power’ musical has taken this decision but it’s the theatre darling. Just be thankful it’s not the lead in Mary Poppins.

So a panto with the dame playing AB?

Pantomime. 'Britches' parts in 18th century - this was all about showing off women's legs btw. 16th century in England boys played women. Lots of cross-dressing roles esp in Shakespeare et al (and the joke in the sixteenth century was that a boy was playing a woman who was pretending to be a boy). Sarah Bernhardt playing Hamlet, another woman (sorry, can't remember her name) playing RIII. Recently a black woman played him in the US - her reasons why this worked, saying 'in this black female body I can own it', seem to lack understanding of the role - but the production includes disabled people and has the role of Edward IV and Richmond doubled, which might well have happened in the original production, of course, but not sure what message doing it as a deliberate focus in the play suggests, Henry VII was nothing like Edward IV as a king, and married Edward's daughter. Sounds like the producer thinks the production is more important than the play.
None of which is to the point of a creepy man who calls himself a 'girl' playing Anne Boleyn. That's just another aspect of men taking women's roles.

I think there's a broad rule in theatre where, if it's Shakespeare, you can do anything you like. There's been an age-blind production of Much Ado, for example, with Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, aged 76 and 82 at the time, as the leads. There's been an all-female production of Julius Caesar and an all-male one of Twelfth Night. There's been a race-swap production of Othello in which the lead was white and all the other characters were played by black actors.

Probably the one taboo is blacking up, but otherwise, if it's Shakespeare, anything goes.

Exactly.

I agree with you now @FlirtsWithRhinos . The casting of Hamilton is relevant in a US situation but it probably won't work if the piece is done in the UK where there has never been a slave/owner situation in the way there has been in the US - we won't 'get it', and will be confused and some reviewers will be actively hostile. I agree re 'Six' entirely.

In none of those were the audience asked/expected to just accept that Vanessa Redgrave was actually thirty years younger than she appeared, or that the women in Julius Caesar were men. With this kind of casting the usual expectations we have about who plays what roles are deliberately subverted.

In Bridgerton, DM's character wasn't meant to be a man dressed as a woman, we were asked to just accept that he was a woman playing a woman.
Same in Six; they're not making Anne Boleyn into a cross-dressing man or a TIM. They've just given a man the role and audiences are expected to just accept that he's a woman.

An interesting thing about the examples you give is that they all cast people from demographics that generally speaking face more barriers to work.

I've seen the show 5 times I think. When introduced, AB is sitting on the back of the stage giggling and taking selfie.

She and KH are portrayed in a similar way, as younger (KH was still in her teens when executed), and Anne is shown more in a youthful Lily Allen way.

I can't imagine anything more cringe inducing than watching DM preening and gurning around a stage! He is spectacular at preening and gurning
Attention seeking individual; he shouldn't have that role. It's certainly generated publicity though

Perhaps the answer is to ignore him totally?

Dylan had his first show yesterday. There are videos on X.

He misses a lot of cues and is massively outsung by his very talented co-stars.

I feel bad for the other women forced to share a stage with him.

Oh no... who could have predicted THAT? 😂

#sadtimes 😭

If I had X I'd happily spend time watching Dylan cocking up his performance. What a shame that a young woman who was brutally murdered should be the subject of a musical such as this and be played by a bloke for the lolz and dance numbers - but women are generally held in contempt by many men, so no surprises really I suppose.

"Cocking up" ??😄

The world has obviously run out of talented women 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Yep - it seemed apt!

You know that trademark transwoman head-tilt?....😧

This is SO embarrassing.