‘The Dog, the Guard, the Horses and the Maid’: Diverse Casting at the Royal Shakespeare Company

Abstract

This article takes as its starting point a quotation from the British East Asian actor Paul Courtenay Hyu concerning casting practice at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC): ‘They have an all-black Julius Caesar and an all-Indian Much Ado, but when they decide to do the Chinese Hamlet, they cast fourteen out of seventeen actors and all of the major parts as non-Chinese. In the 21st century, that’s unbelievable.’ Hyu raises many issues including diversity policies, politics of ethnic minority casting, and cultural representation, all of which were contested following the casting choices made by the RSC in 2012. I use the American scholar Ayanna Thompson’s theories concerning ‘non-traditional’ casting policies as a lens through which to analyse contemporary British theatrical practices. The concepts of ‘colour-blind’ and ‘cross-cultural’ casting are examined in the context of the World Shakespeare Festival where the ethos of celebrating Britain’s ‘unique internationalism’ and diversity was championed. As the Olympic year drew to a close, there were clear tensions between celebration and condemnation, expectation and disappointment, visibility and invisibility, regarding the representation of performers from ethnic minority backgrounds appearing on stage at the RSC. Through an examination of Much Ado About Nothing directed by Iqbal Khan, and Julius Caesar and The Orphan of Zhao, both directed by Gregory Doran, this article seeks to address the complexities involved in different approaches to casting, and the impact these evolving practices have on the cultural representation of diverse communities in contemporary Britain.

Notes

1. Paul Courtenay Hyu, cited in 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 1 February 2014].

2. Sita Thomas, unpublished interview with Paul Courtenay Hyu, London, 23 June 2014.

3. Ibid.

4. Royal Shakespeare Company, ‘Annual Report and Accounts 2011/2012’, (2012), p. 5 <http://www.rsc.org.uk/downloads/120910_rsc_annual_report_2011-12_final.pdf> [accessed 6 February 2014].

5. Hassan Mahamdallie, ‘What is the Creative Case for Diversity’, Arts Council England, 12 September 2011, p. 5 <http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/pdf/What_is_the_Creative_Case_for_Diversity.pdf> [accessed 3 July 2014]. In this article I am solely focusing on diversity in relation to race – particularly Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) actors in Britain.

6. Arts Council England, ‘Investing in Diversity 2015–18’, 1 July 2014 <http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/Investing_in_Diversity_2015-18.pdf> [accessed 8 July 2014].

7. The WSF was produced by the RSC and Shakespeare’s Globe as part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad. It ran from 23 April to September 2012 and showcased the work of UK and international artists in 69 productions. ‘About the Festival’, World Shakespeare Festival, 2012 <http://www.worldshakespearefestival.org.uk/about.html > [accessed 23 June 2014].

8. Interestingly, the visit of East Asian companies to the ‘Globe to Globe’ Festival did attract media attention, though much of it was devoted to the difficulties of the National Theatre of China’s Richard III, whose costumes did not arrive in time for their performance. For further discussion of East Asian contribution to this season see A Year of Shakespeare, ed. by Paul Edmondson, Paul Prescott, and Erin Sullivan, Arden Shakespeare (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 173.

9. ‘Commission for Culture and Olympic Education’, London 2012, 2012 <http://www.london2012.com/about-us/cultural-olympiad/> [accessed 23 April 2013].

10. LOCOG [London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games], ‘Background Briefing Paper, The Cultural Olympiad’, 11 March 2008, p. 4 <www2.newcastle.gov.uk/cab2007.nsf/allbykey/…/$FILE/4.1.doc> [accessed 16 February 2014; URL no longer active].

11. Deborah Shaw and Michael Boyd in RSC Festival Guide, World Shakespeare Festival 2012, (Stratford-upon-Avon: Royal Shakespeare Company, 2012), p. 2.

12. Deborah Shaw, RSC Much Ado About Nothing Programme, (Stratford-upon-Avon: Royal Shakespeare Company, 2012), p. 9.

13. Sailesh Ram, ‘Much Ado About Nothing Review’, Asian Times, 1 October 2012, p. 17.

14. Michael Billington, ‘Julius Caesar – review’, Guardian, 7 June 2012 <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jun/07/julius-caesar-review> [accessed 6 February 2014].

15. Ayanna Thompson, Shakespeare, Race and Contemporary America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

16. Jami Rogers, ‘The Shakespearean Glass Ceiling: The State of Colorblind Casting in Contemporary British Theatre’, Shakespeare Bulletin, 31.3 (Fall 2013), 405–30.

17. Ibid. p. 408.

18. Thomson expands on the terminology enumerated by the Non-Traditional Casting Project. Thompson, Shakespeare, Race and Contemporary America, p. 76.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., p. 79.

21. Gregory Doran cited in Serena Davies, ‘Julius Caesar with a Little Help from Idi Amin and Mugabe’, Telegraph, 30 May 2012 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-features/9300978/Julius-Caesar-with-a-little-help-from-Idi-Amin-and-Mugabe.html> [accessed 23 April 2013].

22. Adjoa Andoh, cited in Bonnisa Gillings, ‘A moment with Adjoa Andoh’, Spotlight Arts Culture, 8 August 2012 <http://www.preciousonline.co.uk/spotlight/features.php#.UXZ257_3Dm0> [accessed 23 April 2012].

23. Rogers, ‘The Shakespearean Glass Ceiling’, p. 423.

24. Iqbal Khan, ‘Iqbal Khan Production 2012 – Director Q and A’, Royal Shakespeare Company, 2012 <http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/shakespeare/plays/much-ado-about-nothing/much-ado-about-nothing-iqbal-khan-2012/much-ado-about-nothing-2012-director-q-and-a.aspx> [accessed 3 July 2014].

25. Rustom Bharucha, ‘Peter Brook’s Mahabharata, a View from India’, in Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture, (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 68–87.

26. Kevin Fitzmaurice, ‘Producer’s Persective’, Royal Shakespeare Company, 27 March 2012 <http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/blogs/designers-dreams-and-doodles/producers-perspective/> [accessed 23 April 2013].

27. With regards to the concept of authenticity, Iqbal Khan acknowledged that although in the theatrical framework ‘you’re mitigating against the authentic or realistic presentation of things’, ‘it’s sometimes important to allow the audience to invest in the naturalism of the behaviour of people on stage, so they believe in some sense that they are seeing a “slice of life”’. Sita Thomas, unpublished interview with Khan, 13 June 2014.

28. Madhav Sharma, cited in Suman Bhuchar, ‘Actor Madhav Sharma Tackles Much Ado About Nothing’, Theatre Voice, 1 September 2012 <http://www.theatrevoice.com/8628/actor-madhav-sharma-tackles-much-ado-about-nothing/#.UXaUS7_3Dm0> [accessed 23 April 2013].

29. Gregory Doran, cited in RSC, The Orphan of Zhao Programme (Stratford-upon-Avon: Royal Shakespeare Company, 2012).

30. Sita Thomas, unpublished interview with Siu Hun Li, London, 31 February 2014.

31. Gregory Doran cited in Matt Trueman, ‘East Asian Actors Seek RSC Apology over Orphan of Zhao Casting’, Guardian, 31 October 2012 <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/oct/31/east-asian-actors-rsc-apology> [accessed 6 February 2014].

32. Ibid.

33. Eleanor Matsuura in Coriolanus (2007), Mo Zainal in King Lear (2002), and Daniel York in The Country Wife (1993), The Merchant of Venice (1993), Moby Dick (1993), Christie in Love (1994), and King Lear (2006).

34. Peter J. Smith, ‘Red Velvet’, Times Higher Education, 1 November 2012 <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/culture/red-velvet/421626.article> [accessed 6 February 2012].

35. Theo Ogundipe, ‘Soothsayer’, Royal Shakespeare Company, YouTube, 25 July 2012, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6hh0rbtgmA> [accessed 10 February 2014].

36. Ibid.

37. Through covering himself in the powder, this Soothsayer prepared his body to be able to make connections to the spiritual world. Anthropologist S. F. Nadel writes in his study of Shamanism in the Nuba Mountains that: ‘In trance, the shama divines auspicious times and conditions for various tasks such as war, farmwork, or rituals; he warns the people of impending events and prescribes the procedure, ritual or otherwise, to avoid or censure particular happenings.’ S. F. Nadel, The Nuba: An Anthropological Study of the Hill Tribes in Kordofan (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 26.

38. Paul Taylor, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, Independent, 2 August 2012, p. 21.

39. Marketing Department, ‘Much Ado Audience Development Plan’, RSC, unpublished.

40. Kimberley Sykes, cited in RSC, Much Ado About Nothing Education Interview Pack <http://www.rsc.org.uk/downloads/rsc_edu_much_ado_2012_interviews.pdf> [accessed 15 April 2013].

41. James Drew, ‘Theatre Review: Much Ado About Nothing @ Noel Coward Theatre’, Londonist, 3 October 2012 <http://londonist.com/2012/10/theatre-review-much-ado-about-nothing-noel-coward-theatre.php> [accessed 15 April 2013]. Near the time of the production, events reported in the news drew attention to honour killings and violence towards women in Indian and South Asian communities. The parents of Shafilea Ahmed were jailed for life in August 2012 for her murder; the judge for the case stated: ‘Your concern about being shamed in your community was greater than the love of your child.’ ‘Shafilea Ahmed Murder Trial: Parents Guilty of Killing’, BBC England News, 3 August 2012 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19068490> [accessed 2 July 2014].

42. William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, ed. by Claire McEachern (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2007), p. 267.

43. Jyotsna Singh, ‘Wooing and Wedding’, RSC Much Ado About Nothing programme (Stratford-upon-Avon: Royal Shakespeare Company, 2012), p. 5.

44. John Russell Brown, ‘Theatrical Pillage in Asia: Redirecting the Intercultural Traffic’, New Theatre Quarterly, 14.1 (1998), p. 9.

45. Natasha Tripney, ‘The Orphan of Zhao’, The Stage, 9 November 2012 <http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/37681/the-orphan-of-zhao> [accessed 3 July 2014].

46. Michael Billington, ‘The Orphan of Zhao – Review’, Guardian, 9 November 2012 <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/nov/09/the-orphan-of-zao-review> [accessed 6 February 2012].

47. Sita Thomas, unpublished interview with Siu Hun Li, London, 1 February 2014.

48. Bharucha, ‘Peter Brook’s Mahabharata’, p. 80.

49. Daniel York, ‘British East Asian Actors Speak Out Against The Orphan of Zhao’, Racebending.com, 19 November 2012 <http://www.racebending.com/v4/featured/british-east-asian-actors-speak-the-orphan-zhao> [accessed 1 February 2014].

50. Thompson, Shakespeare, Race and Contemporary America, p. 77.

51. Michael Billington even highlighted the moment: ‘Chris Lew Kum Hoi also makes a haunting belated appearance as the doctor’s son who was sacrificed for the greater good’. Billington, ‘The Orphan of Zhao – Review’.

52. Hassan Mahamdallie, ‘What is the Creative Case for Diversity’, Arts Council England, 12 September 2011, p. 11 <http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/pdf/What_is_the_Creative_Case_for_Diversity.pdf> [accessed 17 July 2014].

53. Since playing Brutus in Julius Caesar, Paterson Joseph has carried out a research and development process directing an African interpretation of The Merchant of Venice (2014) with an all-black-British company, playing Shylock. From Much Ado About Nothing, Anjana Vasan was cast in the touring schools production of The Taming of the Shrew (2014). Chris Lew Kum Hoi was cast in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013) after Zhao, and Susan Momoko Hingley in Wendy and Peter (2013). This is a small percentage of the overall cast numbers, but nevertheless a positive step in what must be an ongoing process of development.

54. Gregory Doran cited in Trueman, ‘East Asian Actors Seek RSC Apology’.

55. Lenny Henry, ‘Britain’s Ethnic Minorities Need Better Access to the TV and Film Industry’, Guardian, 24 January 2014 <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/24/britain-ethnic-minorities-access-tv-film> [accessed 6 February 2014].

56. British East Asian Artists, ‘Open Letter’, 6 February 2014 <http://twitdoc.com/view.asp?id=123395&sid=2N7N&ext=PDF&lcl=BEAA-Vaizey-update.pdf&usr=danielfyork&doc=205089605&key=key-1x8g57cu2ctq8smj91cz> [accessed 10 February 2014].

57. Lolita Chakrabarti, ‘Lolita Chakrabarti, “Red Velvet”, and What’s Wrong With Theatre Today’, Independent, 28 January 2014 <http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/lolita-chakrabarti-red-velvet-and-whats-wrong-with-theatre-today-9088989.html> [accessed 6 February 2014].