| re: Thoughts on casting Cost of Living with actors with "non-apparent disabilities"? | |
| Last Edit: Singapore/Fling 07:48 pm EDT 05/23/24 | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 07:47 pm EDT 05/23/24 | |
| In reply to: re: Thoughts on casting Cost of Living with actors with "non-apparent disabilities"? - portenopete 02:54 pm EDT 05/23/24 | |
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| You'd be surprised how many theaters really don't care, and I think you'd also be surprised how many people genuinely do care, and aren't just doing it to prove their bone fides. There are of course cynical people out there who only care about image, but it's deeply cynical to presume that everyone who supports this casting ethos doesn't believe in it. In terms of "Cost of Living", there's always been a mismatch between the actors' disability and the characters' disability. Greg Mozgala has cerebral palsy, but not the same kind that John has, and Katy Sullivan is a double amputee where Ani is a quadriplegic (with nothing in the script indicating that she does not have her legs. The point for Martyna Majok isn't that the actors are literally disabled in the way of their characters (and it'd be very hard to do the bathtub scene with a quadriplegic Ani), it's that the priority for performing disabled characters is given to disabled actors, both for their lived experience and for the limited opportunities they have on stage and screen. Looking at the Philadelphia production, both of the actors playing John and Ani don't appear to be local hires, so the production would not have been limited to the acting pool in Philadelphia, but they still would have been limited to who they could get, and so, as with the Broadway production, you have two actors living with disabilities who are playing two disabled characters who don't share their specific disability. If the best John they could find has a non-visible disability, that means they are still fulfilling the artistic intent and activism of the playwright and the play, which I think is worth celebrating. |
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