Three renowned Shakespeare companies have taken different approaches to casting the role of King Richard lll. Each contrasting character playing King Richard has illuminated the murky debate over which actors should play which roles in plays.
At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, Richard is played by the actor Arthur Hughes, who has radial dysplasia. This means he has a shorter right arm and a missing thumb.
This is the Royal Shakespeare company’s first time casting a disabled person to play the character and it certainly will not be the last.
Gregory Doran, the production’s director, told The Times of London earlier this year that having an actor pretend to be disabled in “Richard lll” would “probably not be acceptable” these days.
The Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada took a different approach. They casted Colm Feore, who is not disabled, to play King Richard who is known to have a deformed spine.
In New York City, the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park took another direction by casting a black woman, Danai Gurira, with no disability as the sinister duke who fought his way to the crown.
The actors casted for the role all are unique, but it raises the question: Should actors that are disabled be the only ones casted for King Richard?
The different portrayals of King Richard have caused intense rethinking on diversity, race, opportunity, imagination, and representation over casting.
It has already been established white actors should not play Othello in blackface or caricatured Asian roles. To many people, these portrayals are racist, and those appearances have been growing rarer in the theater and film industry.
More recently, there are questions on who should be allowed to play LGBTQ+ characters and people of different religions. Tom Hanks, who depicted a gay attorney dying of AIDS in the 1993 film “Philadelphia”, regretted his decision of being casted. Bradley Cooper was criticized for using a prosthetic nose to play the Jewish conductor Leonard Bernstein in an upcoming biopic.
Though these restrictions on roles means actors of diverse backgrounds will be given more opportunities, others worry the current authenticity is too forceful.
After all, acting is the art of pretending to be someone you are not.
“The essential nature of art is freedom,” said the Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham. “Once we impose any kind of control over it, it’s no longer free.”
The roles that actors can play should not be as consequential as it is. Representation of what the original character aimed to be is a must, however actors should be able to play whatever role they enjoy.
“A hundred years from now, do I hope white actors could play Othello?” said Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater’s artistic director. “Sure, because it would mean racism wasn’t the explosive issue it is now.”
Sources:
Gregory Doran on the death of his husband Antony Sher and why it’s time to leave the RSC | Times2 | The Times
Who Can Play the King? Questions of Representation Fuel Casting Debates. – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, Richard is played by the actor Arthur Hughes, who has radial dysplasia. This means he has a shorter right arm and a missing thumb.
This is the Royal Shakespeare company’s first time casting a disabled person to play the character and it certainly will not be the last.
Gregory Doran, the production’s director, told The Times of London earlier this year that having an actor pretend to be disabled in “Richard lll” would “probably not be acceptable” these days.
The Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada took a different approach. They casted Colm Feore, who is not disabled, to play King Richard who is known to have a deformed spine.
In New York City, the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park took another direction by casting a black woman, Danai Gurira, with no disability as the sinister duke who fought his way to the crown.
The actors casted for the role all are unique, but it raises the question: Should actors that are disabled be the only ones casted for King Richard?
The different portrayals of King Richard have caused intense rethinking on diversity, race, opportunity, imagination, and representation over casting.
It has already been established white actors should not play Othello in blackface or caricatured Asian roles. To many people, these portrayals are racist, and those appearances have been growing rarer in the theater and film industry.
More recently, there are questions on who should be allowed to play LGBTQ+ characters and people of different religions. Tom Hanks, who depicted a gay attorney dying of AIDS in the 1993 film “Philadelphia”, regretted his decision of being casted. Bradley Cooper was criticized for using a prosthetic nose to play the Jewish conductor Leonard Bernstein in an upcoming biopic.
Though these restrictions on roles means actors of diverse backgrounds will be given more opportunities, others worry the current authenticity is too forceful.
After all, acting is the art of pretending to be someone you are not.
“The essential nature of art is freedom,” said the Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham. “Once we impose any kind of control over it, it’s no longer free.”
The roles that actors can play should not be as consequential as it is. Representation of what the original character aimed to be is a must, however actors should be able to play whatever role they enjoy.
“A hundred years from now, do I hope white actors could play Othello?” said Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater’s artistic director. “Sure, because it would mean racism wasn’t the explosive issue it is now.”
Sources:
Gregory Doran on the death of his husband Antony Sher and why it’s time to leave the RSC | Times2 | The Times
Who Can Play the King? Questions of Representation Fuel Casting Debates. – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
