Sean Hayes / Oscar Levant - The Jewish Part — Page 3

Dollypop said: "Does an actor have to be Danish to play Hamlet?

Does an actress have to be British to play Anna Leon Owen's?

Must the entire cast of GIGI be French?

Does an actor playing Caliban have to actually be half beast?



A true actor BECOMES the character he's playing.

As someone of Italian/Polish heritage who has done four productions of FIDDLER down through the years, I have been honored to become Jewish for the hours I've been on stage in those productions.

It's called ACTING.

Yes it is called acting, but we mustn’t negate the fact that there has been a real problem as of late with actors of different ethnic backgrounds playing against that. People had a problem with Natalie Wood playing a Puerto Rican in West Side Story so it was decided to right that “wrong” and remake the damn thing - and she like Sean Hayes in this play was just an actor playing a role.

Updated On: 4/25/23 at 09:25 AM

I didn't want to break out my Ancestry.com for this, but for those still confused about Jewish ethnicity after countless posts in numerous threads, here ya go:

Sutton Ross said: "
Oh, and if you think a Jewish person plays a Jewish character better head on over to Funny Girl, perhaps you'll learn a thing or two."

I can't even.

Although Michele herself is not Jewish and was raised in her mother’s Catholic faith, her father is indeed a Sephardic Jew. Lea herself may not be considered Jewish under the religion’s matrilineal tradition, or even under the more flexible stances of Reform Judaism, but her ancestry is undoubtedly Jewish.

TaffyDavenport said: "I didn't want to break out my Ancestry.com for this, but for those still confused about Jewish ethnicity after countless posts in numerous threads, here ya go:



"



But being Jewish was your CHOICE, Taffy!

Problems do arise when you actually begin to scrutinize contemporary beliefs about things like non-traditional casting.

This is complicated.

For me, when the story is about race - Parade, Fiddler, Harmony - the actors playing jews should be jewish.

Dollypop said: "Better Midler is Polysesian but that didn't present her from being terrific as Dolly Gallagher Levi.

An actor ACTS.

"

I take your point but though Bette Midler was born in Hawaii, her parents were both Jewish and had moved to Hawaii from New Jersey.

Absoulutely. As I said, I take your point. But Bette isn't Polynesian. That's all.

Someone in a Tree2 said: ""Yet Speilberg didn't cast a Polish actor in the role of Tony. Instead he chose a young man who was Scandinavian/ Russian but convincing in the role.No one complained about that."

The ethnic difference between Polish, Scandinavian and Russian genes isnegligible. And it is in no way critical to WWS that Tony'sethnicity be Polish, just white.

Spielberg's most recent ethnic gaffe much more pertinent to this thread is his casting of Michelle Williams and Paul Dano in the roles of Mrs. and Mr. Fabelman, parts that are absolutelydefinedby their Jewishness. Can Spielberg cast who he likes to play his mom and dad? Of course he can. But it's still a form of Jewish erasure that rankled me no end as I watched The Fabelmans, a picture which in all other ways I adored."

I think the casting of Blythe Danner as the mother in the BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS movie was an egregious error.

In all seriousness. I think there are two issues surrounding these kinds of casting situations. If a white person is cast to play a BIPOC, trans or disabled character, it's often denying the role to an actor from a historically under-employed group. We're still on the road to fixing that disparity and have a long way to go. That feels like issue number one to me.

I think we get tripped up on the second issue, often when the word "authenticity" enters the picture. No actor is acting authentic to their experience. Is an actor from the specific cultural background of the character likely better equipped to play that part? Probably in almost every circumstance. But. Most actors have the capability to bring studied authenticity of a character, culture, background and experience through research and skill. Someone who grew up in America, from Colombian heritage isn't going to understand a character currently living in Venezuela. No group is a monolith (as pointed out there are several cultural groups of Black Jewish heritage). While Sean Hayes isn't Jewish, he's well versed in the comedy/broadway culture pioneered by certain aspect of Jewish culture. Even on that tv show he clearly understood the borscht belt/vaudevillian/classic broadway timing so associated with Oscar Levant and his contemporaries. Blythe Danner, mother of the greatest WASP to walk the earth, is not, was not, and didn't appear interesting in learning. It's not just that she was cast in a Jewish role but she didn't bring any studied authenticity to bear. It's not so much her casting but her actual performance that is offensive all these years later.

I know that folks make the argument that casting ALWAYS be culturally authentic and that no one outside a specific culture could EVER represent a character from that culture. I do not agree... but as someone who is white, I leave space for that position and won't argue it.

The difference between casting a great non-Jewish actor giving a great, "authentic" performance vs Jonathan Pryce playing an Asian role is the erasure of all the qualified Asian actors who very easily could have given a performance at the level of Jonathan Pryce. I never saw Jonathan Pryce's performance so I can't speak to whether or not he did to Vietnamese cultural heritage what Blythe Danner did to Jewish cultural heritage. I think it's possible he gave a great performance, but at the cost of the erasure not of a cultural heritage but of actual human performers notoriously under represented and underemployed at that time.

To compare casting Sean Hayes in this part, who by most accounts is giving a tremendous, studied, and "authentic" performance to the white washed casting of BIPOC, trans, or disabled roles is... I think... a little bit of intentional inauthenticity.

Updated On: 4/25/23 at 03:23 PM

KJisgroovy said: "While Sean Hayes isn't Jewish, he's well versed in the comedy/broadway culture pioneered by certain aspect of Jewish culture. Even on that tv show he clearly understood the borscht belt/vaudevillian/classic broadway timing so associated with Oscar Levant and his contemporaries."



I don't believe that Levant was so much associated with "borscht belt/vaudevillian/classic broadway timing". He was more a figure of urban wit in the style of the "Algonquin Round Table" and a rather unique blend of highbrow and lowbrow contemporary culture; a mix of "longhair" with proto-jazz hipster. And from a cursory reading of the reviews of the play it seems that that inability to easily place Levant among the popular stereotypes of the Jewish comic is one of the plot points of the play.

Updated On: 4/25/23 at 03:35 PM

This thread. This play. These arguments. All of it.