Whizzer, I would argue that Passing Strange actually very deliberately uses this method of casting, similarly to Churchill's casting in Cloud Nine. Since you know the show much more than I, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What would change if you cast Passing Strange according to race - i.e, white actors played white characters? What changes? How does Stew's concept change?
In terms of Carousel, I tink it's fairly obvious that no one thinks these characters could be anything other than white. However, when everyone is white, except Billy and Jigger, this creates a context that is very hard to ignore. Unless audience members are actually blind, then they will take in the race of actors and make their own inferences about it. Casting is context. That is why casting a black Carrie is a much different thing - we see how she married Enoch to improve her station and ends up having a number of children she previously thought to be excessive. Also, from what I've read about that production, it highlighted the "blind" in "colorblind" - wasn't there a line in the review that stated that Enoch and Carrie's children looked like all the colors of the rainbow or something along those lines? In this production, we see two POC actors being the perpetrators of violence on white women (Billy with Julie; Jigger with Carrie, later Billy with Louise) and attempted murderers of a white man. This carries connotations, even if the directors and some on this board think it doesn't. It would be a different ballpark if Enoch wasn't white, or Julie wasn't white, etc. But at this moment, the only non-white characters with large roles are the ones that inflict violence on others. I'm not saying it's a bad conception; it actually might say something really interesting about the way oppression works. But this production seems to have largely ignored it and tries to walk the line of making the audience forget Henry is black. I feel the same way about the H&M ad that ran a month or so ago, featuring a black child wearing a sweatshirt with a gorilla on it. I'm sure the advertises didn't intend to be offensive, they just didn't examine it deeply enough to see the connotations it makes. I feel the same about this production.
Elfuhbuh, I argree that the notion of ignoring race is what "colorblind casing" has come to mean. I personally think that directors should at the very least explore how casting as context might change a show. With Les Miserables the central core of the show is the oppression that a majority of people feel from the state power - the people holding such power are even in the show. So I think it's easier to use casting as context in that show to see how everyone was oppressed by the wealthy lawmakers.
If I seem to be referencing Colonialism a lot, it is just because I find it so related to the events happening around us. For most US people (along with many other counties) in marginalized communities, the power structure enacted in Colonialism never went away, they were just restructured and made subtler, and more nuanced, which are the structures that have kept women, blacks, immigrants, native Americans, the LGBT community, and many, many others oppressed up until today. And I think casing can be used to explore that. That's why I'm quiet on your Great Comet question. I do not know enough about Russian history and power structures to make a claim. All I know is that Dave Molloy chose his cast with the utmost care, so I think it is deliberately anachronistic.
I'm not saying that all shows should deal with this every time we cast someone not white in a role. There are many shows - Hello, Dolly!, She Loves Me, etc. - that are just great fun and everyone deserves a chance to play those roles. I just don think that is true of Carousel, when the only actors of POC are cast as Billy and Jigger.
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
