Ms. Justice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
arspoetica) wrote2012-07-13 04:52 pm
arspoetica) wrote2012-07-13 04:52 pm
Less Than Colorblind
I've been thinking about this week's performance (Henry V at the Globe) and I'm still trying to process everything. I can't get over how much I actually liked this play.
Not to say that I don't usually like Shakespeare. I kind of love it, really. But I tend to draw the line when it comes to his history plays. Even reading this, I was bored to tears. Yet, after seeing the stage performance, I finally get why they say Shakespeare was meant to be performed--not read. This just came to life. I completely forgot that I was standing for three and a half hours (in the rain, too. After walking uphill, both ways), and there were several parts where I nearly cried. Not to mention a bunch where I couldn't stop laughing. Overall, this was performed beautifully.
There was one thing about the performance that really struck me, though. I actually wrote this up for my Shakespeare class, so it's a bit more formal than usual...but I think it bears reposting here.
It is hard to say whether Avenue Q’s tongue-in-cheek ode to modern day racism is a blessing or a curse in regards to civil rights. On one hand, it highlights those day-to-day “quiet” racisms, exposing them for what they really are. On the other, it can be taken as a startlingly clear example of bandwagon mentality, with the characters laughing off their actions as acceptable, since everyone else does this, too. Yet, whether it is used as a mirror to show an unpleasant truth or an excuse to continue with unacceptable behavior, the song throws a spotlight on a reality that many (myself included), do not like to admit; it is not always as easy to be color-blind as it should be.
The Globe’s 2012 performance of Henry V was a fantastic example of color-blind and non-traditional casting. Brid Brennan played as both Queen Isabel and the Chorus, adding a stately and mellow presence to both roles, while Kurt Egyiawan, a black actor and native Londoner, was fantastic playing both Louis the Dauphin and Lord Scroop. Both were articulate, talented, believable in their roles, and fascinating to watch. Yet, where I could put aside Brennan’s gender after the initial surprise when she walked on the stage, I found myself coming back time and again to how Egyiawan had been cast.
I would like to say (and I hope that it would be true), that the difficulty I had was not solely due to his skin color. It also was not due to the King of France being Caucasian and having a black son. Egyiawan gave a complex and engaging performance as the Dauphin, where he was overly arrogant, pompous, foolhardy, and yet also sympathetic as he sought approval from his noble peers and was, perhaps, a bit afraid of the battle when it finally arrived on his doorstep. My difficulty, instead, lay with his role as Lord Scroop.
In the early scene where Henry discovers that three of his peers (and, quite possibly, friends) have plotted with France to kill him, his fury and his grief are equally evident. His reaction is powerful even when printed on the page, but on stage, his pain was palpable and it grew as he addressed each, successive traitor. The ferocity of Henry’s verbal attack was at its pinnacle, then, when he reached Lord Scroop, who cowered at the center of the stage, as the king roared down at him, calling him a “cruel, ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature.” At that moment, I am not sure which made me flinch more—the anger and hurt in Henry’s ever word, or who those curses were directed at.
It is true that, at the beginning of the speech, Henry calls all three traitors “English monsters,” before he has worked himself up into a full rage. Yet the words seemed to take on a particularly disturbing force when directed at Egyiawan. The result was almost visceral in its effect. I was reacting to Henry’s pain, of course, but also to cultural expectations that had been abruptly turned on their heads. Long after the scene had passed, I found myself questioning Egyiawan being cast as Scroop. When he reappeared on stage as the Dauphin, I actually felt a surge of relief, grateful that he was elevated to such a role after being so thoroughly dehumanized only two scenes before.
And there I find myself at the crux of my discomfort and my dilemma. Henry’s insults are dehumanizing. Yet there was nothing in the performance or its delivery that was not in the original script, unless it is the sense of genuine pain that Jamie Parker, as Henry, brought to the role. And, surely, if I could truly call myself color-blind, I would have been equally uncomfortable if Lord Cambridge’s actor had borne the brunt of the assault. Had the roles been switched, however, I doubt the scene would have lingered in my mind past the point where it had ended and the report of Falstaff’s death had begun. It is Scroop’s color that made the moment stick.
This says as much (or more) about me as an audience member as it does about the actors and their performances. After all, as the Chorus importunes in that opening speech, it is my imagination that gave life to characters and my response. Yet, I find myself facing the same question about my reaction as I had when discussing Avenue Q. Is my reaction a mirror, reflecting an awareness of the civil crimes that have been (and still are) inflicted on people of color, or is it a continuation of those quiet racisms, uncomfortable for being brought to the forefront of my awareness? Whatever reaction director Dominic Dromgoole was hoping to get (if it was even done for a reaction at all), I do know that this was an unforgettable performance. Both entertaining and troubling, hilarious and heartbreaking, I enjoyed seeing Henry V more than I ever anticipated.
Not to say that I don't usually like Shakespeare. I kind of love it, really. But I tend to draw the line when it comes to his history plays. Even reading this, I was bored to tears. Yet, after seeing the stage performance, I finally get why they say Shakespeare was meant to be performed--not read. This just came to life. I completely forgot that I was standing for three and a half hours (in the rain, too. After walking uphill, both ways), and there were several parts where I nearly cried. Not to mention a bunch where I couldn't stop laughing. Overall, this was performed beautifully.
There was one thing about the performance that really struck me, though. I actually wrote this up for my Shakespeare class, so it's a bit more formal than usual...but I think it bears reposting here.
“Everyone’s a little bit racist, it’s true.
But everyone’s just about as racist as you.
If we all could just admit
That we are racist (a little bit)
Even though we all know that it’s wrong
Maybe it would help us get along.”
But everyone’s just about as racist as you.
If we all could just admit
That we are racist (a little bit)
Even though we all know that it’s wrong
Maybe it would help us get along.”
“
Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” Avenue Q
Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” Avenue Q
It is hard to say whether Avenue Q’s tongue-in-cheek ode to modern day racism is a blessing or a curse in regards to civil rights. On one hand, it highlights those day-to-day “quiet” racisms, exposing them for what they really are. On the other, it can be taken as a startlingly clear example of bandwagon mentality, with the characters laughing off their actions as acceptable, since everyone else does this, too. Yet, whether it is used as a mirror to show an unpleasant truth or an excuse to continue with unacceptable behavior, the song throws a spotlight on a reality that many (myself included), do not like to admit; it is not always as easy to be color-blind as it should be.
The Globe’s 2012 performance of Henry V was a fantastic example of color-blind and non-traditional casting. Brid Brennan played as both Queen Isabel and the Chorus, adding a stately and mellow presence to both roles, while Kurt Egyiawan, a black actor and native Londoner, was fantastic playing both Louis the Dauphin and Lord Scroop. Both were articulate, talented, believable in their roles, and fascinating to watch. Yet, where I could put aside Brennan’s gender after the initial surprise when she walked on the stage, I found myself coming back time and again to how Egyiawan had been cast.
I would like to say (and I hope that it would be true), that the difficulty I had was not solely due to his skin color. It also was not due to the King of France being Caucasian and having a black son. Egyiawan gave a complex and engaging performance as the Dauphin, where he was overly arrogant, pompous, foolhardy, and yet also sympathetic as he sought approval from his noble peers and was, perhaps, a bit afraid of the battle when it finally arrived on his doorstep. My difficulty, instead, lay with his role as Lord Scroop.
In the early scene where Henry discovers that three of his peers (and, quite possibly, friends) have plotted with France to kill him, his fury and his grief are equally evident. His reaction is powerful even when printed on the page, but on stage, his pain was palpable and it grew as he addressed each, successive traitor. The ferocity of Henry’s verbal attack was at its pinnacle, then, when he reached Lord Scroop, who cowered at the center of the stage, as the king roared down at him, calling him a “cruel, ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature.” At that moment, I am not sure which made me flinch more—the anger and hurt in Henry’s ever word, or who those curses were directed at.
It is true that, at the beginning of the speech, Henry calls all three traitors “English monsters,” before he has worked himself up into a full rage. Yet the words seemed to take on a particularly disturbing force when directed at Egyiawan. The result was almost visceral in its effect. I was reacting to Henry’s pain, of course, but also to cultural expectations that had been abruptly turned on their heads. Long after the scene had passed, I found myself questioning Egyiawan being cast as Scroop. When he reappeared on stage as the Dauphin, I actually felt a surge of relief, grateful that he was elevated to such a role after being so thoroughly dehumanized only two scenes before.
 |
| Kurt Egyiawan, taken from The Guildhall School of Acting and Drama |
And there I find myself at the crux of my discomfort and my dilemma. Henry’s insults are dehumanizing. Yet there was nothing in the performance or its delivery that was not in the original script, unless it is the sense of genuine pain that Jamie Parker, as Henry, brought to the role. And, surely, if I could truly call myself color-blind, I would have been equally uncomfortable if Lord Cambridge’s actor had borne the brunt of the assault. Had the roles been switched, however, I doubt the scene would have lingered in my mind past the point where it had ended and the report of Falstaff’s death had begun. It is Scroop’s color that made the moment stick.
This says as much (or more) about me as an audience member as it does about the actors and their performances. After all, as the Chorus importunes in that opening speech, it is my imagination that gave life to characters and my response. Yet, I find myself facing the same question about my reaction as I had when discussing Avenue Q. Is my reaction a mirror, reflecting an awareness of the civil crimes that have been (and still are) inflicted on people of color, or is it a continuation of those quiet racisms, uncomfortable for being brought to the forefront of my awareness? Whatever reaction director Dominic Dromgoole was hoping to get (if it was even done for a reaction at all), I do know that this was an unforgettable performance. Both entertaining and troubling, hilarious and heartbreaking, I enjoyed seeing Henry V more than I ever anticipated.