NY Times Today Editorial on "Gypsy"- Page 2

[GiantsInTheSky2]

Posted: 6/17/24 at 6:32am

“But it’s it accurate/believable!!!” is such a red flag. Tell me your lack imagination and creativity without….

None of you are complaining about these same problems with every other show on Broadway. It’s very telling. We can only suspend our disbelief for so much - and the rest we’re giving passes to because, I don’t know, it doesn’t fit the narrative of the commenter (“no Hamilton is a ~special show~ so it works but I cannot believe a black women playing Gypsy”) 

We’re also suddenly unhappy with the gift that is Audra in Lady Day and other works? It’s all just so silly. 

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 6/17/24 at 8:45am

PipingHotPiccolo said: "nothing racist about disagreeing with him, but i dont follow. Gypsy with a Black family at its center is not historically accurate for all the reasons he says. But so is Gypsy with a Black leading actress and a white daughter and an Asian husband, etc. etc. Sadly, once Audra steps into the part (and we all agree that we want her to, yes?) then the historical accuracy of this (not at all historically accurate) story goes out the window."

I hate to tell you this, but Gypsy is not historically accurate. This show isn't a documentary and and isn't a entirely truthful telling of anyone involved lives. So once we get over that hump in the road, watching a Black Rose is not the biggest leap they've made with this story. 

[verywellthensigh]

Posted: 6/17/24 at 9:47am

It's not about the impossible bar of "historical accuracy", it's about being truthful to a very specific time and place in American history.  I can't tell you how many TV shows I've seen where actors of color play characters that move through historically racially fraught spaces with no mention of what a real person of color would experience in that situation.  Perhaps TV, where lazy anachronism is rife (Amazon's excellent Shogun series almost had me throwing my shoe at the screen when one character exclaimed "And now this is happening...", but I digress) is a bad example, but I can't help but think of very young viewers watching these stories and getting the visual message that the past was some kind of inclusive utopia.

Updated On: 6/17/24 at 09:47 AM

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Posted: 6/17/24 at 10:04am

I completely support color blind casting, And that’s one of the reasons that I agree 100% with this column. Color blind casting should, must, go both ways. Casting Audra as Mama Rose is a wonderful idea, but IMO there was no reason to cast her as Black Mama Rose. 

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 6/17/24 at 10:27am

Oh, for ****'s sake, can the show open please before we develop opinions on this director's ideas?

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 6/17/24 at 11:26am

verywellthensigh said: "It's not about the impossible bar of "historical accuracy", it's about being truthful to a very specific time and place in American history. I can't tell you how many TV shows I've seen where actors of color play characters that move through historically racially fraught spaces with no mention of what a real person of color would experience in that situation. Perhaps TV, where lazy anachronism is rife (Amazon's excellent Shogun series almost had me throwing my shoe at the screen when one character exclaimed "And now this is happening...", but I digress) is a bad example, but I can't help but think of very young viewers watching these stories and getting the visual message that the past was some kind of inclusive utopia."

Trust and believe, if an audience member watching a show is thinking the past is an inclusive Utopia, it's not because of a handful of TV shows where they bend the rules of casting. You can watch Media an acknowledge that you watching a TV show that doesn't depict specific true events. It should be doublely so when it comes to stage when the suspension of disbelief is higher as a standard of the medium.

[darquegk]

Posted: 6/17/24 at 1:44pm

Part of me, the cynical/paranoid part, thinks this discussion isn't REALLY about a "black reimagining" of the Broadway musical Gypsy. Everywhere on social media, I've been seeing the uneasy racial detente between Black and Jewish Americans starting to come apart at the seams.

The limited success of Black Lives Matter to actually institute change, and then the Israel/Palestine war, are both completely legitimate issues and grievances on a sociopolitical level. But they've both been weaponized, likely by international trolls, as ways to paint the international Jews as either complicit or actively malignant: the oldest and most insidious of conspiracy theories. Any time a Jewish person or issue is raised online (especially in connection with POC), you'll quickly see almost non-sequitur "free Palestine," "not the time" or "we see what you are, we don't need you anymore" responses posted under it.

Just like musical theatre isn't gay but it kinda is, musical theatre isn't Jewish but it kinda is. And now we have a Black/Jewish cultural clash again here; don't be surprised if the discussion gets heated and divisive. This is a small ember of a larger fire, blown far away from where the real discussion is going on.