TV: Roundabout Announces THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD Cast- Page 3

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/28/12 at 11:37pm

Yes…William Ivey Long. Who gave us THESE. Blech.

Yeah, but those dresses are supposed to be ugly.

[aasjb4ever]

Posted: 6/28/12 at 11:43pm

Well.

[theatreguy]

Posted: 6/28/12 at 11:53pm

I don't think they need to be played by white people in brown make-up because they're "more cartoonishly exotic." It's because Janet Conover and Victor Grinstead (the members of the Music Hall Royale chosen to play Helena and Neville) are white. The point is that they're going a bit too over-the-top in trying to portray these characters from a place they really know nothing about. It's SUPPOSED to be "color-corrected" casting on the part of the Music Hall.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't work with actors who actually look like they could be from Ceylon. It probably wouldn't be as funny though.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 6/28/12 at 11:56pm

This cast looks amazing! I'm not a huge fan of Will Chase, but everyone else seems promising. As you can probably tell from my avatar, this is one of my favorite shows, and every piece of news just sounds great.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:02am

theatreguy---that's as close to a valid explanation as I can expect.

Period-appropriate racial caricatures.

It's not colorblind casting, it's a joke ... quite literally intended to be so.

[americanboy99]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:06am

Hoping the production lives up to this delightful casting.

[MCfan2]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 9:05am

"Regarding the Landless Twins: Helena and Neville hail from Ceylon, and were, in Mr. Dickens’ original novel, colonialists who, save for their tans, were quite similar in dress and character to any English youths."

With all due respect to Mr. Holmes, that's not quite accurate. The Landless twins were "both very dark, and very rich in color; she of almost the gypsy type." There was a strong suggestion throughout that they were half Caucasian and half Sri Lankan (or whatever they would have called it back then). However, I guess he's right that this doesn't really have any bearing on whom an English music hall troupe would choose to play them!

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 10:31am

It plays a lot more into the Dickens novel with possible motives for murdering Edwin. It's definitely suggested that they might be mixed race, connecting them even closer to Drood.

But since Dickens died while writing it, it's an unsolved "mystery."

Neville is very hot-headed, though. And that's in the musical as well.

I have to say it's one thing to write racially stereotypical characters into a "period piece" Music Hall convention ... it's another to refer to their ethnicity as "tans" in a modern interview. Maybe that's why Holmes found this so funny.

[Jon]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 11:31am

John Herrera, who is Hispanic, originated the role of Neville. He has played lots of Hispanic AND non-Hispanic roles, includiong one of the founding fathers in 1776. No one complained that a Latino was playing Roger Sherman.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 11:49am

John Herrera's role as Sherman in 1776 wasn't a parody of a latino made up to be a white man, was it? Maybe that's why they didn't complain.

For the record, I saw the OBC of Drood and saw it again later in the original run. Herrera was in it both times. He was over-the-top, yes, but I didn't find his performance offensive. In hindsight, it was Jana Schneider that really played up the "exotic dancer" aspect of Helena and chewed the scenery right off the wall.

Maybe my sensibilities have changed now that I'm older. I don't know. I found her mostly goofy. Perhaps that's why I dismissed it at the time. It just wasn't that memorable, and frankly I didn't understand why she got a Tony nomination. She had some funny moments and was beautiful to look at while she undulated all over the set. That's about it. She was in a cast filled with memorable performances, though.

Updated On: 6/29/12 at 11:49 AM

[Kelly2]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:13pm

Guys. Let's all calm down because the thing is that Andy Karl is beautiful and it doesn't matter if he is racially appropriate. Besides, when you look at his butt in the costume, you won't even notice what color his skin is!

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:15pm

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the joke about the Landless twins (at least in the show) that they're supposed to be generally "exotic", hence Helena's accent? I don't think they're supposed to be anything close to an actual representation of someone from Sri Lanka, so the race of the actor playing the part should really have no bearing.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 12:39pm

Yes, you're right!

But to me, that's the equivalent of watching a minstrel show and saying, "Well, black people don't really look like that, so what's the problem with doing black face? It's a joke! Why should it matter?"

[Bialyhoos22]

Posted: 6/29/12 at 2:52pm

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

[macnyc]

Posted: 8/5/12 at 6:38pm

I'm bumping this up because I just bought tickets today, and I'm very excited to see it!