Much Ado about Everything

Reading this week about the history of Asian American theatre in the wonderful book by Esther Kim Lee, I've started to wonder about the impetus behind "color-blind" casting and it has presented itself in educational theatre. Now I have witnessed and been a part of many instances of this type of casting. Some were natural, some poignant and some were completely nonsensical. Lee's book, which starts with an examination of the racism and stereotyping of Asians in the majority of 20th century American drama, examine the reinforcement of such beliefs about Asians and how they impacted the presence of Asian representation. Here I remember a much beloved version on Cole Porter's Anything Goes, done by my high school, and the two Chinese converts who wore conical hats and ran an illegal gambling ring on the lower levels of the ship. They were played by two white students who donned exaggerated eye liner and kept their hands firmly pressed together when not rolling dice. No changes to the lines were made in this production to account for the fact that the actors were not Asian, their costumes presented the stereotype in a way that allowed the Audience of Kansans to understand and accept the discrepancy. The next year, my high school put on Once of this Island, a tale of the Caribbean, in which only four of the 120 cast members we're black. The line referring to the "black peasant girls from the village beyond" was changed to "young peasant girls" and the line "a beautiful child the pale color of coffee mixed with cream" was adjusted too: "the color of peaches mixed with cream". I wonder know why the same school and audience could accept painfully stereotypical assumptions of Asians in one show and then require ridiculous adjustments for Caribbean characters. It seems that Lee would sadly frown and nod at this anecdote.


A more successful use of colorblind casting, and indeed more true to the intent of the term, would be I the revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown in which the beloved Peanuts characters were cast regardless of race. Lucy was played by a white actress and her younger brother, Linus, was played by an Asian actor. Lucy's love interest, Schroeder, drawn as a blonde was played by a black man. The actors appeared in the expected costumes from the comic strip and casting became a non-issue.


What is it about a show's casting that makes one offensive and another respectful, or at the least, inclusive? How do we address race in contemporary theatre? Do we bow to societal conventions because theatre is "an illusion of reality" (24), as Lee refers to it, that we must consistently reference in order to be deemed realistic? Or is there something mmore sinister at work, an unconscious refusal to accept progressive views of humanity on stage? There is not clear cut answer, of course, but I have often sat in a casting session perplexed. Does changing the race of a character change the meaning of the show? I have heard many directors make this argument, that including non-white actors into a cast, the play invariably becomes about race. Many directors comfort themselves with this notion of choosing to exclude races so as not to make a play about race. And yet, about the Shakespeare Theatre's 1997 "photo-negative" production of Othello it was stated that "in the race reversing, the company seeks to shatter stereotypes and remind playgoers of the endlessly adaptive nature of Shakespeare's exploration of otherness" (Marks). Why cannot all plays remind playgoers of the versatility of the stage?


Accounts of the many exclusions and inequalities of the theatre like Lee's sadden and embolden me to make a change within my own aesthetic. The theatre has always been, to me, an inclusive place where people are judged by their contributions, not their appearance. Books like Lee's inspire me to continue working toward a theatre at does not view race is such stereotypical terms, a theatre that can be used as a platform to set an example and present the issues still present in society.

Lee, Esther Kim. A History of Asian American Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print.

Marks, Peter. "The Green-Eyed Monster Fells Men of Every Color." New York Times 21 November 1997. Online.

Stop, Look, and Listen

Today, I've been reading about performance studies, and, for probably the first time, have started not understand what that term means. Diana Taylor says, "performance explores the use and significance of gesture, movement, and body language to make sense of the world" (77). She also says, "performance is not just a doing, a form of carrying through" (77), it is so much more than the preconceived presentation of script and movement. Performance is deeply psychological. When we edit our thoughts to be polite, persuasive or inoffensive, we perform a version of ourselves. This act of being is performance, and therefore those who study behavior are a part of the umbrella that is 'Performance Studies'. What this leads me to wonder is, what are we performing that we do not mean to present? Taylor mentions that the Natural History Museum presents marginalized cultures as exhibits. What message is this performing? That these cultures are overlooked and must be foregrounded to gain attention? Or that these cultures are so removed from the normative experience that we can safely observe and judge them, that they are just as animalistic as the stuffed lion that shares the diorama? These cannot be consciously selected subjects of performance, but they are performative. How can we control thee subjects we present when, to quote a colleague, "our very atoms at work are performance"? For me, we must be aware. In a way, I feel that Diana Taylor would agree with me, we must be as conscious as possible of what we present to the world. The content with which we perform our lives. Some gain this through education, some through consideration, others observation. As a group of actors would never present a performance without a rehearsal, without a conscious attempt at interpreting a text and crafting a message, so to should humans never present a performance without at least contemplating the finial product. We all experience moments when we fly off the handle, when we speak without thinking. But if we weight our own thoughts routinely, we are less likely to perform something that differs from how we would choose to perform if we had time to consider. This probably makes more sense in my head than on blog, however, if we practice what we preach, if we practice what we perform, then perhaps we can become the thing we are only attempting to be. If we wonder what it is we are performing, doesn't Socrates allow that we will improve our message?

When did Sesame Street stop teaching us?

I've been reading National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage by Karen Shimakawa this week.  In it, she discusses the role of Asian Americans in drama and how they are represented as either intractable foreigners or noble converts to the American way. Her point being that Asians were not allowed to have their own culture and to have that culture be valuable.  Either they maintained their cultural roots and were perpetual outsiders or they gave up their own traditions in favor of assimilation.  The implications her arguments make are that white Americans cannot suffer independence of being.  Now, I can argue against her claims all I want, but her proof is there in the examples she provides of theatrical performances where this type of stereotyping is painfully prevalent.  What's worse is that this type of abjection is not reserved solely for Asian Americans.  It is everywhere.  Latino, African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern.  What happened to "give me your tired, poor and huddled masses"?   When did American's become such terrible people?

I can't help but think back to Sesame Street.  Those monsters were some of my best friends.  They taught me to count, spell, write and to be a kind person.  To include others and share my toys.  To listen to my parents and teachers.  I can still spell and count.  I know the colors and that C is for cookie.  I even still listen to my parents.  So why did I (the universal I) stop being inclusive?  At what point between stopping watching Sesame Street did we unlearn that lesson?  Did we really unlearn it?  If that's the case, then human nature is exclusionary and tribal.  Or did someone teach it to us?  In that case, why didn't some other adult stand up and protest that lesson plan? 

These questions concern me.  It seems that I am part of a society that is oppressive, hateful and ignorant.  These are some of the things that I cannot stand in others, and yet I must now accept it in myself because I choose to remain part of this society?  I have always been plagued with this concern over being helpless, incapable of action and ultimately ineffectual.  I can dedicate my life to righting the wrongs that Shimakawa addresses, but what good will it do in the grand scheme of things?  Probably nothing.  It's quite a disheartening prospect, being ineffective. 

The Sameness of Difference

"Performances tend to reveal, whether the performers intend to or not, the intricately processual nature of relationships of difference...Performances provide the ways and means whereby a 'Free-born people' can be formed. "(Roach 76). Joseph Roach wrote, in Cities of the Dead, about the evolution of cultural performativity through the examination of the Mardi Gras tradition in New Orleans. Roach makes the point that culture finds ways of presenting itself, even when oppressed or in a minority. People will find a way to maintain their heritage. I cannot speak to this directly, as I am in a dominant society with very few traditions. With no personal religious or hereditary cultural traditions in my life, I find it hard to connect with what Roach discusses. The melting-pot of America has always seemed, to me at least, to be a wasteland of half-remembered scraps of culture. I have always been jealous of my friends of varying colors who had traditions that were upheld by their families and had been so for generations. My traditions were formed when my parents married. Part of this cause is the very issue of the melting-pot. I had a very angry and slightly drunken verbal argument with an Irishman in a pub in Cork City, Ireland about American tourists' insistence on claiming Irish nationality. I tried to explain to him that Americans don't tend to have a heritage past a few generations so many claim their ancestry to connect with that greater sense of culture. He, of course, was terribly offended. I was shocked at his insensitivity. Obviously, being Irish is cool. Why would you deny someone a tiny part of that? Especially when being American only takes us back so far, whereas being Irish can take you back to before the expansion of the Roman Empire. I am also reminded of a conversation I had with a friend on a train in Boston about the meaning of 'queer' as it applied to the term 'LGBTQ'. As a heterosexual woman, sympathetic and also drawn to the gay aesthetic, I considered myself 'queer' and therefore a part of the term. She, a recently uncloseted lesbian, was greatly offended at my attempt to align myself with her new culture. I wasn't a part of it and could never understand it because I was on the outside. In retrospect, I see myself once more craving a greater, more discernible, culture than the one my WASPy upbringing provided. I question what Roach would say to my case, as I feel I have no culture to speak of that resonates outside of my own life, and yet I have created cultural connections for myself. Are these my Irish tribal influences grasping for a new tribe to call my own as Roach might suggest, or am I suffering from an existential crisis because of my lack of culture? Is this just a #firstworldproblem because I'm excited to wear a Sari at my friend's wedding and jealous that I don't get a four-day celebration too? Does participating in culture make you a part of the culture, or do you need an I.D. badge and a password to truly belong?