Ethnic people in non-ethnic roles — Page 4

starspangledjenny, you are right--Kevin Gray, who is at least partially Asian, played The Phantom on Broadway.

Kevin Grey also played Gaylord Ravenal in the SHOWBOAT revival- either on Broadway or the tour.

Robert Guilliaume also played the Phantom.

Emily Yancy, who is African-American, was a replacement Aldonza in the original production of MAN OF LaMANCHA. She is best known as Irene Molloy in the Pearl Bailey version of HELLO DOLLY.

Don't know if he played the role on Broadway but Kevin Grey did play Ravenal in the Los Angeles engagement of the 1st national tour of the Showboat revival.

He also played a role (forgot exactly which one) in the Titanic national tour.

He was excellent as Ravenal.

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Edit: In the words of Emily Litella..."Nevermind"!

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Updated On: 8/25/10 at 04:07 AM

Lumen2 wrote:

I'm all for color blind casting as long as it isn't gimmicky. Like the one Black stepsister in the "Into the Woods" revival; you can rationalize the choice all you want, but it just struck me as "We need to make one peripheral character a minority" and that's a tiny bit offensive. Yes, the Steward was played by a Black actor as well, but at least that's more understandable then having a White mother with one white daughter and one Black one.
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This happened in the original production as well. Terry Burrell was the replacement Lucinda, playing opposite Kay McClelland and later Susan Gordon-Clark.

While casting a non-Caucasian actor only in a relatively minor role might well be considered offensive, I can't agree with the second half of the statement. If the Stepmother's husband had been black, they could well have produced two daughters that looked of different races. This is not even a far-fetched justification.

Of course, the original production of the show did also bring in Phyllicia Rashad as a replacement Witch, and of course the revival had Vanessa Williams in the role. I'm aware that it could be argued that it might have been different to cast, say, a black actor or actress in one or more of the other major roles. But I'm just pointing out that in the revival especially, it's not as if the only minority actors in the show were in subsidiary roles.

Whatever you want to call this kind of casting, the earliest examples of casting without regard to race in New York theatre go back to the 1940s.

Regarding the idea of casting a black actress as Nellie: If you were doing a production that wasn't supposed to represent American life (as seen from outside America) in the 1940s in any sort of realistic way, sure, you could do it. But I'm guessing that the person who suggested it may be unaware of certain things helpful to understanding the historical background of the show.

mygfdontliveincanada wrote, "I think it could work. Nellie truly doesn't believe she's racist at all. It's not until the end of the 1st act when she meets Emile's half-Polynesian children that she starts to realize that she's prejudiced. I personally don't think Nellie's the kind of character who has a problem with anyone who's not her color. I think she just has a problem with people of THAT color, probably because of the war. Polynesians look an awful lot like Japanese, especially to a 'little hick' from Little Rock, Arkansas."

The reason why the rehearsal script for the original production had Nellie use the word colored (restored in the LCT production) in the scene where she realizes that Emile lived with a Polynesian woman who was the mother of his children is because to her a Polynesian woman was different from a Japanese woman. In Michener, Nellie uses the N word instead. And Nellie's differentiation of Asians from African-Americans is discussed. If Nellie had thought of Polynesians as being Asian, it's made clear that her reaction would have been far less visceral and that she would not have regarded it as a reason not to marry Emile.

In addition, as has already been pointed out, the U.S. Armed Forces were segregated during WWII (which the LCT production fudged a bit). Even if an African-American woman were a nurse in an otherwise predominantly white group (which I think wouldn't have happened), her racial identity would have been an issue. And it would totally (pardon me) whitewash the content of the show to pretend otherwise.

Nor would a black nurse have been described as a heroine in the pages of a Little Rock newspaper.

Updated On: 8/25/10 at 06:40 AM

Basingstoke: The role of Bloody Mary was originally played by an African-American, Juanita Hall, on Broadway and in the movie. She also played Madame Liang in Flower Drum Song on Broadway and film.

In the past 59 years, Bloody Mary has been played by many more African Americans than Asian Americans.

Basingstoke: Kiss of the Spiderwoman takes place in South America, so the characters are very likely not "Spanish."

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Fosse76 wrote: "He initially replaced Mark Jacoby as Ravenal in the Chicago sit-down. I'm not sure if he continued on when it toured."

I know that he played the role in cities other than Los Angeles; Denver, for one. Not sure if that was the same company that had played in Los Angeles.

Fosse76: "Just because the original 'witch' was white doesn't make it a traditional 'white' role, especially since the replacement was black. The race of the witch and Steward are irrelevant to anything in the show. But I agree, if you need to have a family relationship portrayed by the actors, they should at the very least look like they can be related."

Well, the first sentence brings up the question of when a tradition can be considered to have started in the casting of a role. Can we, for example, say that the Phantom is a traditionally white role given that Robert Guillame played the character relatively early in the show's history? Of course, there's a tradition in earlier dramatizations of the source material, but there was never a reason, from a realistic point of view, why the character had to be Caucasian. And you're right that it's even more true for the Witch where, with the very first replacement, they hired an actress with a different racial background from the original. Good point.

As for the families thing, I'm less bothered by that kind of casting than some other people are. And I'll again say that in the specific ITW example, Cinderella's Stepmother's first husband might well have been of a different race so their daughters could well be played by actresses of different races.

Hell, I know two sisters who look so different from each other (though they do both look white) that even they joke about secretly having different fathers.

Ned Beatty had to leave the show and Len Cariou replaced him for a while, including in Denver. But, yes, it was Leachman, Gray, and Bell in Denver.

I thought Denver was after Los Angeles, but perhaps I'm wrong.

It was Teri Hansen in Denver.