Color Blind Kowalski? — Page 2

"Blanche' is French for White. So there's that.

Never met a Meisner devotee who wasn't a raving narcissist who cared for nothing but their "moments."

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

You are willfully ignorant. There is no point in even trying to have a discussion about this.

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.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PHYLLIS ROGERS STONE. Thursdays at 1AM. Only on Lifetime.

Phyllis, 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.

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.

And that is because She is glorious and her breathtaking essence makes one powerless to look away from Her.

Please stay on topic. We are discussing The Julia Roberts.

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

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