Buses, Blackface, and Batman
Plus: Are we born Wicked or do we have wickedness thrust upon us?
“Don’t Do Blackface” Somehow Still Controversial
Tenor Francesco Meli is being publically grumpy about director Fabio Ceresa’s decision to not darken his skin as Otello. Opera has historically been (and continues to be) waay behind theater in this respect. Patrick Stewart wanted to play Othello since he was 14, but realized that
when the time came, when I thought I was ready to play it, it was clearly, and I was totally in favor of this, completely unacceptable that I would put on black face, and play Othello. I knew I couldn’t do that.1
Instead, his 1997 production was “photo-negative” with a mostly Black cast. The production also had a female director "since we were doing something somewhat controversial with the concept anyway."2
The Met Opera cut that $#&% out in 2015, Teatro La Fenice should too.3
Yup, Definitely a Troll
In response to last week’s cri de cœur about the wanton misuse of “wherefore” on Romeo and Juliet’s Instagram, the brilliant Benjamin Broadribb pointed out that Stratford-upon-Avon buses have the monstrous
wherefore art thou romeo? he’s on the bus to Stratford-upon Avon
printed on their sides. Offenses against capitalization aside, I agree with Benjamin that this, “*has* to be trolling the many academics and creatives present in the town at any given time.”
I am officially starting a collection. If you see misuses of “wherefore” in the wild, let me know.
Lend Me Your Ears
Isaac Butler’s podcast Lend Me Your Ears is just as excellent as it was in 2018. Read Isaac’s intro and a recent update, there are episodes on Julius Caesar, Richard II, King Lear, Othello, Measure for Measure, and Coriolanus.
Quick Links
Shakespeare’s Globe. C’mon. We’ve talked about this.
Shakespeare Dallas will led you bid on a walk-on role in their summer production.
Poet Amanda Gorman riffs on Wicked and Malvolio. (“Are we born Wicked or do we have wickedness thrust upon us?")
I haven’t watched “The Traitors,” but Alan Cumming in a big hat and a torch reciting Macbeth will always get my attention.
“It’s not just the RSC that Broadway has been hesitant to stage, but Shakespeare in general.”
An immersive murder-mystery Hamlet set in a New Mexican art-gallery.
“As she wipes clay onto Claudius, it becomes clear she’s rubbing the ashes of her dead father onto him to provoke a reaction.”
The company’s other work includes “DEATHCOOKIE, a murder mystery commissioned by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin for his Sky Railway Adventure Train.”
Nataki Garrett reflects on her time leading the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
“The red blood raigns in ye winters pale” is figurative, okay?
There have been many (many) smart explorations of why Branagh’s Lear is Not Good. “It was better when you were ‘newly married to Emma Thompson’” is a fun take.
I’m feeling residually guilty for subjecting a friend to the first half of Merchant at Classic Stage last week. But this picture of the cast in Batman masks is fun!5
Watchlist
Dan Jones: The Astonishing Rise of Henry V (I agree that Henry V’s speeches need “more creative swearing”)
Recommendations
The Bristol Old Vic says it will honor an “unlimited theater” token from 1766.
You will be shocked (SHOCKED I say) to learn what substances Egyptians drank out a mug featuring the god of a) joy and b) fertility.
Will someone please watch this movie about “an adopted viking orphan [who] becomes a carpenter’s apprentice to Jesus” and has an MMA side hustle and tell me about it?
Researchers used AI to unearth hundreds more Nazca lines, including a tableau of a knife-wielding orca severing a human head. That’s a good sign, right? (RIGHT?!)
Brigham Young University’s cross country coaches wear arm play holders featuring their runners’ sports-psychologist-approved “power statements.”
Coach 1’s eyes frantically rake his armband
Coach 1: Joey…Joey is…
Coach 2: ‘Kill.’
Coach 1: (shouting) Joey you got this! KILL BABY KILL!
All credit to the NY Times for linking to the video in their exploration of the athletes’ medicinal cold weather olive oil use.
Stewart pitched the production to multiple theaters and they all declined. Michael Kahn at Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C. picked it up only after Stewart sold him on the concept in an American Airlines lounge. So, collect those airline points and you too…
Stewart did his research and found that “very, very few women had directed Othello…there was a woman director in England who I had heard of and admired…so I said, how would you feel about coming to Washington and directing this?”
A solid reminder to move Margaret Webster’s Don’t Put Your Daughter On the Stage to the top of your reading list. She directed, produced, and played Emilia in the 1943 Broadway production starring Paul Robeson as Othello with the then-married Uta Hagen and José Ferrer as Desdemona and Iago. Hagen and Ferrer eventually divorced because (surprise!) Hagen was having an affair with Robeson. Webster muses in Daughter that “perhaps I should have been better at [directing Othello] had I been more of a ‘Method’ director” (p. 110) but there was *plenty* of real-life jealousy and deception going around.
Also, Meli’s assertion that “When you go to see Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ you want to see the swans, the feathers, just as no one dreams of the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ set in the Bronx or in a rubbish dump” is very funny. Number one, Matthew Bourne would like a word. Number two, have you met Peter Sellars? The man set Antony and Cleopatra in the Adams House pool, Figaro in Trump Tower, and Così in a diner. Audiences flocked. Stop. Giving. Him. Ideas.
Kenneth Macmillan’s dramatic sleeve choreography is already top notch.
I could not explain what is going on in this picture if my life depended on it. Salerio and Salarino were muppets, Portia entered in a inflatable rainbow unicorn costume, and Morocco was actually Nerissa but also a crossdressing redneck from Texas? (It is possible I was hallucinating by that point.) I think the caskets were balloons? And the “Mission Impossible” theme played? Also Britney Spears Christmas music? Jessica thought she was Juliet and started doing the balcony scene and then Shylock recited lines from Titus? And the whole thing was a talk show hosted by Antonio? Gobbo doing the entire “budge” speech on a unicycle was entertaining but beware: future audiences will not have the opportunity that we did to leave at intermission.