I'm really surprised that people taking such a hard and fast stance on this truly innocuous piece of casting. The Music Hall Royale is a 3rd rate troupe of English hams, drunks and derelicts, parading around in the run down resort town of Greater Dorping-on-Sea in 1892. Regardless of how Helena and Neville are described in Dicken's actual text, the WASPy Music Hall Royale is putting on a loose, paint-by-numbers adaptation. These are uneducated actors (hustlers really) living in a sheltered, class-divided (ignorant) Victorian England. They have no idea how these Ceylonese characters would speak beyond the usual caricatures they'd be familiar with. While not particularly sensitive or PC, broad ethnic stereotypes had long been staples of music hall fare and it would be no different here for this motley troupe.
Could they have cast non-caucasions in the parts? Absolutely. Should they have cast them? I don't believe so simply because the Victorian theatrical conventions within Holmes' libretto would remain the same -- not unlike how black performers were required to "cork up" regardless of the fact they were black. Frankly, I think it would add a similar uncomfortable, complicated layer to the whole thing and pull focus if you had non-caucasion actors playing a broad ethnic stereotypes within the context of the play. The characters Victor Grinstead and Janet Conover are supposed to be white-bread, xenophobic Britains -- these cartoony caricatures of Neville and Helena that Holmes wrote in are perfectly in alignment with the attitudes and theatrical traditions of the era. Again, I'm not suggesting it's right or politically correct, but to try to cast it racially diverse for the sake of it would actually be going against what the script requires.
That said, I think this is some wonderful, exciting casting...I'm very interested to see what Jim Norton does with the Chairman! He has big shoes to fill with the memory of George Rose's indelible performance.
Updated On: 6/29/12 at 02:52 PM
