Who gets to walk the stage? Who should be allowed to portray the people who make up our plays and films and television series?
What about disabilities?
In the 1990s I was lucky enough to see two remarkable productions of Richard III; Ian McKellen played him as a Nazi and Robert Lindsay played him as a man full of maniacal laughter. I disliked the McKellen production despite his ability as an actor and I loved the Lindsay interpretation. Shakespeare has reached the point where his plays can be interpreted in vastly different ways.
Neither of these actors were disabled. Nor was the black Denzel Washington playing this white king. Peter Dinklage, most famous for Game of Thrones, has played Richard III, and he is disabled. But his disability is achondroplasia – restricting the growth of long bones resulting in Dinklage being 1.35 metres (4ft 5in) tall.
Arthur Hughes, currently on Apple TV as Shardlake, was the first disabled actor to play Richard III for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2022. And, like Dinklage, he is disabled, suffering from radial dysplasia, but neither of these actors are hunchbacks. It appears Shakespeare was wrong and the real king, while suffering from scoliosis, was no hunchback. And now the Artistic Director of the Globe Theatre, Michelle Terry, is to play the King and has been castigated for not casting a disabled actor.
How tightly do we restrict casting?
Should Terry be criticised for casting herself rather than a disabled actor? Should we extend the edict of Charles II and not only restrict female roles to females but limit disabled roles to disabled people? And if so, how closely do we require that disability to match? Do we require trans characters to only be played by trans people? Should homosexual roles to be limited to gay and lesbian actors? If skin colour is to limit who plays certain roles, do we extend that to nationalities?
I can hear the screams from the usual suspects that if Othello must be played by a black man, then white characters should only be open to white actors; abled roles only available to abled actors and cis parts restricted to cis actors!
And what might we lose?
We should, and must, enable greater and fairer representation of trans actors, disabled actors, and actors of colour. The current method is to restrict the relevant roles to those groups. Should we extend this to female roles? Because if we had I would never have seen Mark Rylance’s curious but fascinating Cleopatra at the Globe Theatre.
And that is my real question – what might we lose? As well as Rylance’s Cleopatra I would never have seen Olivier’s Othello or Lindsay’s Richard III.
The theatregoer in me wants to see roles stretched by gender and colour and not lose performances that can now be no more than might have been. Is my love of Shakespeare and the vast stretchability that 400 years have gifted his plays colouring my gaze?
Does this fail as we reach the 20th Century? Would the plays of Tennessee Williams work outside the context of the deep southern states; Arthur Miller’s or Eugene O’Neill’s beyond their firmly white American base? And what of the works of George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, Joe Orton and so many more?
In conclusion
Encouraging more writers from outside the dominance of a white, male, western world sounds good but that will take generations to have a significant effect and we cannot let this be ignored. Opening the demographic of people who get the educational opportunities and the economic possibilities of adding to the cannon of great literature is but one aspect of addressing our white and predominantly male privilege.
For now, I think the only way to drive some balance is that we must forego the next Olivier’s Othello and the next Rylance’s Cleopatra. We should restrict the minority roles very largely to members of those minorities while giving those minorities unrestricted access to all parts – male and female, white and black, abled, disabled, trans and cis.
