Color Blind Kowalski?- Page 2
Color Blind Kowalski?
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#25Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 3:19pm
Sorry, Jordan, I'm trying to stay out of these sorts of discussions. And Idiot already protected himself with the "Nah, not so much." How can I argue with THAT?
Also, I didn't know a character is Les Mis was nicknamed "the blonde"? I've never heard someone called that in the libretto, though, so I guess it's not THAT important of a detail?
I do think that if a mixed-race family on stage pulls you out of a show, that it's more about you than it is about the show.
Updated On: 6/20/11 at 03:19 PM
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
Okayfine
Stand-by Joined: 6/2/08
#27Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 3:39pm
Patash - I absolutely do NOT believe in so-called "color-blind casting". We actually agree 100%. My post was too long: I rambled, lost my reader & have no one to blame but myself! 
I am NOT an adherent to Meisner, although my acting teacher was. It used to drive me crazy when he told us to cross out stage directions & that the actor's interpretation was more important than the playwright's clear intent. "Stuff & nonsense!"
#28Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 4:07pmNever met a Meisner devotee who wasn't a raving narcissist who cared for nothing but their "moments."
Okayfine
Stand-by Joined: 6/2/08
#29Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 6:42pm
Yes, well. I'm not going to argue w/ you on that point!
PhyliisRogersStone - "The Blonde" was Fantine & it was in the novel on which the show was based. And please don't say that what is in the book has nothing to do with what is on the stage. That's like saying the playwright's intentions don't matter.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#30Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 6:56pm
By your logic, that means you take issue with every other change or omission in the material as it went from novel to musical. Does that fact that we never find out Gavroche is Eponine's brother take you out of the show, too?
Updated On: 6/20/11 at 06:56 PM
#31Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 7:56pm
"I do think that if a mixed-race family on stage pulls you out of a show, that it's more about you than it is about the show."
It's hard for me to fathom that you believe this even as you type it.
No, when an audience member is distracted that two white characters have produced a black child, it's not an issue of racism. It's an issue of logic.
And if Stella is white and Stanley is black in a play that takes place in the American South in the late 1940's, yeah -- it's relevant. It makes the play about something else.
You seem to think that color and culture are irrelevant to stories and the characters that populate them. You're wrong. Otherwise, Williams wouldn't have pointed out the 'negro woman' in the opening of the play, or made Stanley distinctly Polish. Blanche is bemoaning, after all, the loss of their plantation. That's a white problem in the world of this play.
Next thing you know, you'll be supporting a red Witch in the Wizard of Oz! Madness, I say! Madness!
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#32Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 7:57pmYou are willfully ignorant. There is no point in even trying to have a discussion about this.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#34Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:11pm
Perhaps when you get to high school and college and understand more about the world, you'll take a different view of color blind casting.
Idiot.
#36Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:18pmTHE WORLD ACCORDING TO PHYLLIS ROGERS STONE. Thursdays at 1AM. Only on Lifetime.
#37Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:19pmThe concept of color blind casting does require the audience to use the imagination a bit - the actors just represent the characters, same as ever...like a well-known movie star playing a lead role. You see past Julia Roberts or whoever and see the character that she is playing - it shouldn't be any harder to see past Ben Stiller than the color of somebody's skin, right?
Beyoncé is not an ally. Actions speak louder than words, Mrs. Carter. #Dubai #$$$
#38Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:22pmPhyllis, I realize you think you are superior if race is not an issue to you. But if anyone here is an "idiot" it would have to be the person who doesn't understand that in certain periods of American history race defined both the person and his relationship with other people. To pretend what color a southerner losing her plantation is doesn't make any difference is sheer lunacy. Not unlike casting a three hundred pounder in the role of an anorexic and asking the audience to see beyond the physical or the obvious.
#39Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:23pm
All I see when I see Julia Roberts is grace, beauty and the face of all that is good and holy in the universe.
I saw LARRY CROWNE a few weeks ago and seeing her on the big screen makes me feel like I am in a gorgeous church looking into the eyes of the creator.
#40Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:29pm
Agreed, Jay Lerner Z -- in theory. In practice, I don't think it works.
When I saw Rashad play The Witch in INTO THE WOODS, it didn't make a lick of difference. Nor did it matter when Vanessa Williams played The Spider Woman in KISS OF. But those characters don't trade on ethnically based cultural attributes to define them.
#41Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:29pmDespite what I said in my previous post, when I saw Three Days of Rain I could NOT see past Julia Roberts...even Bradley Cooper couldn't distract me from her.
Beyoncé is not an ally. Actions speak louder than words, Mrs. Carter. #Dubai #$$$
#42Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:31pm
And that is because She is glorious and her breathtaking essence makes one powerless to look away from Her.
#43Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:32pmPatash - I couldn't agree with you more. The PC faux liberal voice is actually corrosive to our culture in my opinion.
#44Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:33pmPlease stay on topic. We are discussing The Julia Roberts.
#45Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:39pmI'd go see Julia as Stanley.
Beyoncé is not an ally. Actions speak louder than words, Mrs. Carter. #Dubai #$$$
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#46Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:40pm
The concept of color blind casting does require the audience to use the imagination a bit
So does simply going to the theatre. "Why do people in that world deliver almost every thing they say or do to the same direction?" "Why do they take long pauses sometimes after saying something funny?" There are a million other theatrical conventions that no one thinks twice about and don't "take them out of the show," so why is a mixed-race cast or non-traditional racially cast show so hard for so many people?
People love to cloak their defense of rigid racial roles in theatre behind claims of historical accuracy and author's intent, but I hear few complaints about white Jesuses or Italian-American Evitas. Nor do I see a lot of complaints about women performing Shakespeare. The first two examples are historically accurate and the second goes against the playwright's intention.
Phyllis, I realize you think you are superior if race is not an issue to you.
I don't see it as superiority at all. I just find it exhausting having to listen to knee-jerk responses to questions of race in theatre because people can't be bothered to think about the bigger picture (like in this thread where Michael Bennett's comment about other races "deserving" to play these roles got misconstrued by someone else).
But if anyone here is an "idiot" it would have to be the person who doesn't understand that in certain periods of American history race defined both the person and his relationship with other people.
I don't know if you're referring to anyone specific, but I do have a decent grasp the nature of race in regard to American History. I also have a grasp of the cultural inequities of American theatre, which many people don't seem to have a handle on.
I don't see how people can look at me and accuse me of acting superior but can't seem to understand why there is a need and a reason for African-Americans (not to mention other under-represented races) to be "allowed" to play roles that "we" traditionally see as white.
Updated On: 6/20/11 at 08:40 PM
#47Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:41pmDon't joke. Julia as Blanche would be my nirvana.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#48Color Blind Kowalski?
Posted: 6/20/11 at 8:41pm
The PC faux liberal voice is actually corrosive to our culture in my opinion.
Please explain what you mean by this comment, specifically what constitutes a pc faux liberal voice and how it is corrosive to "our" culture. You might as well explain what "our culture" is in this context while you're at it. White people's culture, I guess?
Updated On: 6/20/11 at 08:41 PM
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