Gender Blind Casting? — Page 2

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#26

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 2:59am

Nick Bottom -- what your director is doing goes against the rights and royalties s/he agreed to. (assuming, of course, s/he has actually paid rights and royalties)

If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

#27

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 6:48am

In avenue q, hasn't gary coleman been played by both males and females?

#28

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 6:48am

In avenue q, hasn't gary coleman been played by both males and females?

#29

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 7:41am

What the OP seems to be referring to is changing the gender of the character and not having actors "in drag" playing the role.

In my opinion it can work, but you usually have to change more than one gender, as well as a few changes to the characters lines and background if you want the audience to buy it.

Take Wicked for example. If the gender of the two leads was reversed, Fiyero would become female. Most of the show would still work but certain scenes and songs, such as "popular" would have to be changed dramatically, as no audience is going to believe that two straight college guys sit up at night giving each other makeovers and teaching each other how to toss their hair. Of course it's possible that two guys would do this, and there's nothing wrong with it, and times are changing, but most audiences, even in this day and age just wouldn't buy it.

A gender reversal of the King and I would be great, but as it's based (loosely) on history and the lead characters are not fictional, another option is to write and adaptation of the piece. Perhaps a new musical with the same themes and ideas, but set in another country where an all powerful queen rules. It's not what the OP meant, but it's probably the closest you can get to changing genders realistically.

#30

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 9:30am

"unlike the man-made concept of race. Peter Pan was ruined for me as a child because it was played by an old woman and made no sense to me."

I understand but feel differently. For me, it's made possible by the suspension of disbelief made possible by the right casting and the suspension of disbelief allowed by theater.

People in the audience can generally distinguish gender. But people on stage also don't suddenly burst into song or speak in iambic pentameter.

Or, in the case of Peter Pan, fly.

In any event, it's beside the point for this thread, as OP was speaking, as you mention, of scriptural changes.

#31

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 9:42am

Nick Bottom -- what your director is doing goes against the rights and royalties s/he agreed to. (assuming, of course, s/he has actually paid rights and royalties)

Dramamama

I thought so. I am angry about this because I was one of the guys at callbacks who got cut. I kind of want to do something about it, but I probably won't...

#32

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 9:54am

Unless it's a character like that in SPELLING BEE or AVE Q or something along those lines, what's the point? If a role is written for a man why not let a man play it? Is this more of that PC bullshlt that everyone deserves to be able to do or be anything they want and telling them that they can't is unfair? Because I got news for you - SOMETIMES THERE ARE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO! If you're in a wheelchair you can't go into a tiny little botique store with no wheelchair access. If you're deaf you can't be a music reviewer, if you're blind you can't review the fall fashion collection. If you have Tourettes and can't sit still or be quit, you sure as hell shouldn't be going to the theater. If you're a man and want to play Rose, than go down to your basement, put on a karaoke track and belt your heart out, but don't subject the rest of an audience to be confused for 3 hours as to why a man is playing this part written for a woman or vice versa.

It's like that statement in the color blind casting thread that I found incredibly racist (hey, racism goes both ways, remember?!?) that basically said black actors should play parts over white character because they're black. It's ridiculous. Just more PC bullshlt and it's beyond ridiculous.

#33

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:27am

Jordan, if there is no point I agree. But sometimes there is one, a new take on a story.

Have you seen On A Clear Day? If not, are you already convinced it can't work?

Have you ever seen His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell and Carey Grant? Great movie in which Russell plays Hildy, originally a male character in the play on which the movie is bawsed, The Front Page.

#34

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:31am

No, I get that. New take, great. But to do it just "because" and to make no sense - I'm against. I think it's ridiculous, pointless and takes the role away from a talented actor (black, white, man, woman) who's RIGHT for it.

#35

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:33am

We could take it one step further and speak of gender orientation rewrites.

A famous example being These Three with Hopkins, Oberon and McRea which Wyler directed long before Hollywood allowed him to make The Children's Hour as written with Maclaine, Hepburn and Garner. There the purpose was the opposite of political correctness. It was censorship. Surprisingly, it was still a pretty good movie.

The new On A Clear Day reverses orientation like These Three but also reverses gender. There the purpose is a new take on a story to make it more interesting to contemporary audiences, I take it.

#36

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:35am

Unless the character in question has a scene where they pee against a wall I have no objections to a gender switch.

#37

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:42am

Really, Joe? You wouldn't mind at all seeing a production of FOLLIES where Phyllis was a 300 pound man, SALLY was a male dwarf, Ben was a butch woman and Buddy were a twinkish little queen?

Because once you start with "I don't mind experimenting or reversing genders because you're supposed to suspend belief when you walk into the theater", than where do you stop? And if all of those people mentioned above "wanted" to be in the show and play those parts, why shouldn't they be able to?

I stop when it doesn't make any sense or when even for one second you're taken out of the story to have to figure out who people are, is that really a man or a man playing a woman?, Wait is Madame Armfeldt going to take her wig off and say she's a man?, Wait, I'm confused - Is that character gay? HE'S been talking about his love of men all night. Why is he with a woman now?

#38

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:57am

I agree with Jordan, to a degree. For example, Brian Bedford's Lady Bracknell didn't bother me because it was clear that he was playing the character as a woman. There was nothing tongue-in-cheek about his performance. But I'd have trouble with a production of Gypsy where Mama Rose was played by a dude. As Henrik noted, it's one thing when (like Bedford as Bracknell or Diane Venora as Hamlet) you have a female or male playing the role as written; it's another when you have a gender-reversed casting situation that seems completely out of place.

"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

Updated On: 10/11/11 at 10:57 AM

#39

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 11:02am

I'm actually playing Phyllis next month at the Ponderosa Buffet Playhouse, Jordan. I'll let you know how it goes.

#40

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 11:07am

God, they have the best Sweedish Meatballs there. I'll definitely see your production more than once!

#41

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 11:15am

Don't they? Let me know where you're sitting and I'll toss you my underwear during "Ah, But Underneath."

#42

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 11:17am

Seriously?? WHY are you guys doing the London version?? Ponderosa is ALWAYS doing these weed versions of my favorite shows.

#43

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 11:23am

I imagine there's a better term for this, but what about the Samantha type- a female character written more like a gay man?

#44

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 11:35am

It's my fault- I said I wouldn't play Phyllis unless I could strip. You should have heard the SPLAT when those sweaty jockeys landed in the audience!

#45

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 11:54am

I have to concur with Jordan's disdain. I really wanted to hear how Lucy wants to be Jesse Ventura.

Oh, what am I saying? Joe naked in Follies and all-you-can-eat Swedish meatballs is like winning the lottery while French kissing Anderson Cooper on your birthday.

"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian

#46

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 1:05pm

When I worked at Trinity Rep under Oskar Eustis, he would regularly do gender blind casting. In particular, the annual run of A Christmas Carol would have dual, alternating casts with one of them featuring a woman playing Scrooge as a female. Of course, by necessity, this meant switching the gender of Belle and young scrooge. It worked well, adding new depth, layers and unexpected meaning to the role.

Strangely enough, when they had a black actor playing Scrooge one year, they had a white boy play young Scrooge. Color blind is one thing. But I think this only served to confuse people.

Art has a double face, of expression and illusion.

Updated On: 10/11/11 at 01:05 PM

#47

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 1:23pm

I saw Christmas Carol with a black Tiny Tim. At intermission a common topic was "So what, is the kid adopted?"

#48

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 1:29pm

When I saw THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK with an Asian Anne, I was confused at first but understood what they were going for once her mother (played by an Afghani blind man) accidentally fell out of the attic window.

#49

Gender Blind Casting?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 1:40pm

This thread has completely jumped the shark.

The original post was clearly not proposing willy nilly giving a role identified as female to a man (as in Jordan's apt example of the, er, folly, of having a 300 pound man playing Phyllis) or giving a role identified as male to a woman, as an analog to race-neutral casting.

It also wasn't about drag casting (either in its conventional or camp traditions, as exemplified by the Tudor and early Stuart stage, Divine, or the Takarazuka Revues, or in its realistic form as exemplified by Bedford's extraordinary Lady Bracknell).

It was about purposely revising a script to change the gender of a character, maintaining the character's general situation in the plot but giving the piece a different take - and hopefully with some relevant purpose - by altering the gender makeup of the dramaturgy.

They are two, or rather, three, very different things.

Updated On: 10/11/11 at 01:40 PM

#50

Jumpd the Shark?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 2:40pm

Is the shark in drag or merely playing a shark of the opposite sex? How can you tell the difference? Can a Great White Shark play a Black Tipped Shark or is that racist? What about a So-so White Shark? What if it jumped one of those sea creatures that change their sex, like a nematode? What then?

Updated On: 10/11/11 at 02:40 PM

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