Casting Matters: Colour Trouble in the RSC’s The Orphan of Zhao

Abstract

This article argues that all casting practices have significant discursive power. Drawing upon Judith Butler’s analysis of materiality, and J. L. Austin’s speech-act theory, it asserts that, in all contexts, casting produces bodies as discursively meaningful, and can facilitate a reflexive gap between actors and the roles they play. The article focuses on Ben Kingsley’s performance as The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 to explore how this gap might articulate both dramaturgical and social performativity. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) The Orphan of Zhao is then analysed to consider why ethnic pretence was critiqued by British East Asian artists in this production. Ultimately, the article argues that the way in which The Orphan of Zhao was staged leads to possible charges of cultural imperialism – a charge that framed the relationship between actor and role as ‘authentic’, and prevented the casting from being truly ‘integrated’.

Notes

1. Iron Man 3, dir. by Shane Black (Marvel Studios, 2013).

2. Dean Carey, Master Class: The Actor’s Audition Manual For Men (London: Nick Hern Books, 1995), p. 3. The manual for women contains identical text. Emphasis in original.

3. Ayanna Thompson, ‘Practising a Theory/Theorizing a Practice: An Introduction to Shakespearean Colorblind Casting’, in Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance, ed. by Ayanna Thompson (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 1–26 (p. 6).

4. Ibid.

5. Equity, ‘Equity’s Policy Statement on Integrated Casting’, 6 April 2011 <http://www.equity.org.uk/documents/integrated-casting-race/> [accessed 30 May 2014]. Bullet points in original.

6. August Wilson, ‘The Ground on Which I Stand’, Callaloo, 20.3 (1997), 493–503.

7. Colette Conroy, Theatre & The Body (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 58.

8. Lisa Anderson, ‘When Race Matters: Reading Race in Richard III and Macbeth’, in Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance, ed. by Ayanna Thompson (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 89–102 (pp. 93–94).

9. Steve Garner, ‘Introduction: The Political Stakes of Using Whiteness’, in Whiteness: An Introduction (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), pp. 1–12 (p. 5).

10. Anderson, ‘When Race Matters’, pp. 91–92.

11. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 7.

12. Ibid., p. 6.

13. Ibid., p. 7.

14. Conroy, Theatre & The Body, p. 62.

15. Bert O. States, ‘The Actor’s Presence: Three Phenomenal Modes’, in Acting (Re)Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide, 2nd edn, ed. by Philip B. Zarilli (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 23–39 (p. 24).

16. Judith Butler, ‘Imitation and Gender Subordination’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 722–30.

17. Marvin Carlson, The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), pp. 85–89.

18. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 12–13. Emphasis in original.

19. Butler, Bodies That Matter, pp. 9–10.

20. Garner, ‘Introduction’, p. 5.

21. Shane Phelan, Getting Specific: Postmodern Lesbian Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), p. 51.

22. Secret Theatre Company, Secret Theatre Show 2 [A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams], dir. by Sean Holmes, Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London, first performed 9 September 2013.

23. Lyn Gardner, ‘My Disability Helped Me Understand Blanche DuBois, Says Streetcar Actor’, Guardian, 2 June 2014 <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jun/02/disabled-actor-plays-blanche-dubois-streetcar-named-desire> [accessed 5 June 2014].

24. Ibid.

25. Butler, Bodies That Matter, p. 25.

26. Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento, Crossing Cultural Borders Through the Actor’s Work (New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), p. 56.

27. Thompson, ‘Practising a Theory’, p. 17.

28. Frank Digiacomo, ‘Marvel Studios Says Iron Man 3 Villain Isn’t Chinese: He’s International’, Movieline <http://movieline.com/2012/10/22/iron-man-3-ben-kingsley-the-mandarin-not-chinese/> [accessed 23 January 2014].

29. States, ‘The Actor’s Presence’, p. 24.

30. Ibid., pp. 25–34.

31. Cole Moreton, ‘The Dark Family Secret That Drove Ben Kingsley to Success’, Daily Mail, 21 May 2010 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1277638/Ben-Kingsley-The-dark-family-secret-drove-success.html> [accessed 23 January 2014].

32. Kingsley cemented his reputation through a 15-year stretch at the RSC, participating in productions such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream (dir. by Peter Brook, 1971) and Hamlet (dir. by Buzz Goodbody, 1975).

33. Iron Man 3, dir. by Shane Black (Marvel Studios, 2013).

34. See: Matt Trueman, ‘Royal Shakespeare Company under Fire for Not Casting Enough Asian Actors’, Guardian, 19 October 2012 <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/oct/19/royal-shakespeare-company-asian-actors> [accessed 16 July 2014]; Alistair Smith, ‘East Asian Actors Call for Public Forum to Discuss Casting Concerns’, Stage, 30 October 2012 <http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2012/10/east-asian-actors-call-for-public-forum-to-discuss-casting-concerns/> [accessed 16 July 2014]; ‘“The Orphan of Zhao” Controversy: East Asian Actors Demand Apology from Royal Shakespeare Company’, Huffington Post, 31 October 2012 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/east-asian-actors-adress-_n_2050353.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ir=UK> [accessed 16 July 204].

35. Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), The Orphan of Zhao, dir. by Gregory Doran (adapted by James Fenton), the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 14 December 2012, Theatre Programme, n. p.

36. James Fenton, The Orphan of Zhao (London: Faber, 2012), p. 5.

37. RSC, The Orphan of Zhao, dir. by Gregory Doran, the Swan Theatre, first performed 30 October 2012. Performance witnessed: 14 December 2012, 7:30 pm.

38. Anna Chen, ‘Memo to the RSC: East Asians Can Be More than Just Dogs and Maids’, Guardian, 22 October 2012 <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/22/royal-shakespeare-company-east-asians> [accessed 8 February 2014].

39. See, for example, ‘Is the Royal Shakespeare Company Racist?’, Letters from the Mezzanine, 19 October 2012 <http://lettersfromthemezz.com/2012/10/19/is-the-royal-shakespeare-company-racist/> [accessed 8 July 2014].

40. Gerald Delanty, Community (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 102.

41. Garner, ‘Introduction’, p. 5.

42. Angela Pao, ‘Ocular Revisions: Re-casting Othello in Text and Performance’, in Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance, ed. by Ayanna Thompson (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 27–46 (p. 27).

43. Royal Shakespeare Company, Henry VI, dir. by Michael Boyd, the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, first performed 30 November 2000.

44. See, for instance, Fiachra Gibbons, ‘RSC Casts Black Actor as English King for First Time’, Guardian, 19 September 2000 <http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/sep/19/fiachragibbons> [accessed 8 July 2014].

45. Butler, Bodies That Matter, p. 7.

46. Thompson, ‘Practising a Theory’, p. 7.

47. Torben Grodal, ‘The Experience of Realism in Audiovisual Representation’, in Realism and ‘Reality’ in Film and Media, ed. by Anne Jerslev (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002), pp. 67–92 (p. 68).

48. Ghandi, dir. by Richard Attenborough (UCA Studios, 1982).

49. Sunshine, dir. by Danny Boyle (Twentieth Century Fox, 2007).

50. Prometheus, dir. by Ridley Scott (Twentieth Century Fox, 2012).

51. ‘Amanda Penlington “Not a Man from England”: Assimilating the Exotic ‘Other’ through Performance, from Henry IV to Henry VI’, in This England, That Shakespeare: New Angles on Englishness and the Bard, ed. by Willy Maley and Margaret Tudeau-Clayton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 165–84 (p. 179).

52. Almeida co-production with Headlong, Chimerica, dir. by Lyndsey Turner, Almeida Theatre, London. First performed 20 May 2013; transferred to Harold Pinter Theatre, London, first performed 6 August 2013.