Black or White

Let’s start with the fact that a playwright has actually had to ask for people to boycott theatres that allow the use of ‘blacking up.’ Let’s begin there. No, no, get out of your time machine. We’re not going back to the 1920s. In fact, you don’t even have to turn your calendar back to last week. Oh no. This is happening right now. At this very moment, theatres are getting the greasepaint out and waving it in front of actors’ faces like with a cheeky grin like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

But what’s worse is that people seem to agree.  A poll run by The Stage today has shown that 29% of respondents agreed that the use of ‘blackface’ in the theatre was completely acceptable. According to these people, it’s perfectly fine to ask a white actor to play a black role by applying black paint to their face. Apparently there’s nothing wrong with this. Apparently it’s not offensive. Apparently we’re supposed to be totally OK with all of this.

It seems that the people who allow this to happen don’t see just how insulting this is. By getting a white actor to ‘black up’ you’re basically saying to all black actors that they’re not good enough. You’d far rather get someone to PAINT THEIR FACE BLACK than find a suitable actor from the vast wealth of black actors out there. And I’m sorry but even if the amount of black actors in Germany (where this story originated) is so low that you’re finding it almost impossible to cast then I suggest you choose a different play.  And the issue isn’t just reserved to this particular piece of miscasting. It’s happening all over the bloody place. Look at the cross-gender casting at the RSC at the moment. I’ve ranted and raved about this in several blogs already so I don’t want to cover intensely well-trodden ground. However, this type of casting is just as insulting. I know that the RSC are doing it as they want to put on plays how they used to be staged but instead it’s just a big ol’ Shakespearean slap in the face to us ladyfolk. Female roles are hard enough to come by as it is so when box office smashing blokes are cast in those scant parts, it’s pretty damning. Despite what the RSC says it just feels like they’re telling us women that we’re not good enough to sell tickets or play female roles on stage.

And I appreciate the work that other companies are doing by either getting casts who are all female or all black or all Asian or all who prefer tea to coffee. But I'm not entirely convinced that it's really helping the problem. The issue should be encouraging more people from ethnic minorities to enter the profession (apart from youngish Middle Eastern actresses, that area is FULL…) and also into supporting new writing that is far more representative of the real world out there. This silly little planet of ours is far more diverse than all women playing mothers or prostitutes, all black men playing criminals and all Asian women playing those in arranged marriages. However, if you lived your life just believing everything that the world of acting tells you then, 1) get outside you fool and 2) you'd believe that those stereotypes make up this Daily Mail-esque apocalyptic world.

The German theatre in question has since denied any intentions to use the archaic technique of blacking up, saying they had learnt from previous productions that this is now unacceptable. Whether or not this is true, we may never know. However, it doesn’t excuse the fact that people out there still think it’s OK to do it. Oh how we like to think in 2012 that we are thoroughly modern and forward-thinking but, unfortunately, it seems like we’re being desperately held back too.

Everything But The Girls

When the RSC announced their 2013 summer season yesterday, we all rejoiced. "LOOK AT ALL THOSE FEMALE DIRECTORS!" we cried as we danced around in the rain. We've all been waiting for some good news in theatre since MoylesGate and, for us ladyfolk at least, it seemed that this news was surely it. FIVE whole lady directors in one little season. Why, that news is almost unheard of. Add to this a new play by Tanika Gupta about Queen Victoria and it finally seemed like Viva Forever wouldn't be the only source of Girl Power in theatre. The whole thing caused Boyd to proudly announce:

"Next year has ended up, by accident, as a celebration of women in theatre...It has not been a conscious piece of positive action … but it is great that we are doing something about it with a concentration and intensity that is new for the RSC."

Well done, Mr Boyd, you can feel pride in your RSC swansong. You can feel wonderfully smug as ladies across the land sing your name in ecstasy. Or can you? You see, because I'm a cynical actress who refuses to see the good in things, I instantly started looking for the negatives. And wow, did I find one. Of course, my job is to see what's it it for us actresses and, if you take a quick look at the plays they'll be doing in this 'celebration of women' season, you'll quickly find that there's not party-poppers for us actors with lady bits. They've announced that the plays they'll be producing are All's Well That Ends Well, Hamlet (of course, it's now legal to have Hamlet in every bloody season in every bloody theatre), Titus Andronicus, As You Like It, The Winter's Tale, A Mad World My Masters plus new plays by Tanika Gupta and Mark Ravenhill. Now, obviously I don't know what roles the two new plays will involve but a quick tot up of the ones that do already exist and it seems that these plays contain a triumphant 85 named roles for the boys and a miserable 21 for us girlies. Now, unless the two new plays contain a whopping 64 female roles then it seems this celebration of women in theatre has very quickly become a rather exclusive members-only party. Much like the RSC itself.

I realise that this is something I rant and rave about on an almost weekly basis and I'm sure it's becoming tiresome to read but this is a problem in theatre that just doesn't seem to be changing. I'm bloody thrilled that they've got a whole host of female directors in because the representation of women in theatre is not just limited to those who prat about on stage. But I'm as bored of seeing the same-old, male heavy plays in the theatre as I am of seeing tweets about 50 Shades of Bloody Freaking Grey. And I realise that the RSC are a bit limited by Shakespeare's writing but they've shown they're capable of putting on new plays too so why not focus on that to ensure that women are being fairly respresented? Even when they do produce new writing, they've shown they're not to be trusted with female roles. Just take a look at the cast list for their new play A Soldier For Every Son - The Rise Of The Aztecs - http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/a-soldier-in-every-son/cast.aspx Yep, that's 15 male roles and a paltry 3 female roles. Excellent work, RSC. Well frikkin' played.


Who knows, they've only announced the casting of Hamlet so far so maybe they'll be getting in lots of ladies to play the male parts. Maybe they'll surprise me so much that I'm forced to eat all the hats. Or maybe, just maybe, 2013 will just be another year where the men reign supreme and the women take their kit off.

Actor vs Actress

Hi-diddly-dee. An actor’s life for me. Or should that be actress? Ever since Whoopi Goldberg uttered the words…

“An actress can only play a woman. I’m an actor, I can play anything.”

…the debate has raged over what the correct term is. Some leapt on the bandwagon instantly and entered a full tirade against anyone who dared speak the name ‘actress.’ Feminism reigned supreme and regardless of what bits you entered the world with, the correct term was actor.

I completely understand the notion behind what Whoopi said but is it entirely necessary? Why should the term ‘actress’ be seen as derogatory? Personally I’m very proud to be an actress and everything that it stands for. Why should we be ashamed that our job title instantly means that people understand that we are a female performer? Does this mean that we’re now embarrassed to be called women? Will this topic force me to ask any more questions? Keep reading and find out… 

Now I should be proud when people ask me what I do for a living. I love my job and the ridiculous things that I get to do on a daily basis. Yes, I dread having to go through the ‘no I haven’t been in EastEnders’ speech and I hate explaining that I’m not working on anything yet and there’s no chance that they’ll have ever seen me in anything. But there’s something I hate most of all. It’s what I should damn well call myself. The term ‘actress’ has never bothered me but as I mention it, I feel the dark shadow of feminism looming over me. I get the same feeling I get when I let a man buy me a drink and the betrayal of the sisterhood takes over. The problem is though that, more often than not, you’re explaining your job to people who don’t act. Therefore, if you tell people that you’re an ‘ACTOR’ then they instantly think you’re an idiot. It will take all their willpower not to do the ‘ooooo, an actorrrrr’ (you know the one I mean) and even if they don’t do it in your face, you can see the struggle behind the eyes and you feel like a fool.

A sad thing happens when you type in the word ‘actress’ into Google. Go on, do it now. Yep. The first bloody thing it brings up is ‘actor.’ Even the world’s biggest search engine instantly corrects you and makes you feel like you share the same sexist views as your great Uncle George. Instead of just humouring you and brining up an informative Wikipedia page that would include a handy amount of facts so that you could easily write a blog about the history of the actress, it leads you, like the frightened little politically correct beast it is, to the page that it thinks it should do. 

I realise that the term actor was originally set up to just mean a performer and there was no gender bias to the word. It just happened to mean a male performer because us ladyfolk weren’t allowed to do silly voices for a living so as soon as someone said the dreaded word, everyone knew they were talking about a bloke who gets his kicks running around on stage. It’s only when the world realised that a female role is the part that women were born to play that they came up with a new word to describe these new and interesting beings. 

But most importantly, what’s wrong with a bit of differentiation between men and women anyway? Weren’t we all happy that the term ‘actor’ meant a male performer and ‘actress’ meant a female performer? Does this mean that we all need to campaign to be called men regardless of our gender? And what about male performers? If men want to jump on this trundling bandwagon going nowhere, will we find Dominic West suddenly declaring…

“An actor can only play a man. I’m an actress, I can play anything.”

No. Of course not.  And if he does, I bet we’ll all be clamouring to be called an actress again…