| John McWhorter on a Black Rose in GYPSY. | |
| Posted by: portenopete 12:17 pm EDT 06/13/24 | |
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| I am not sure how to link it so I'll just trust that most people can figure out how to access it :). A typically measured and lucid piece by McWhorter. I think I am more optimistic that Wolfe's take will be terrific or, at the very least, interesting. But it was good to be reminded of the non-events that the earlier examples of Black stars playing White roles were: Brian Stokes Mitchell as Fred and Don Quixote, James Earl Jones as Martin Vanderhof, Audra herself as Carrie Pipperidge. It reminded me of the reaction that greeted Clive Rowe when I saw the dress rehearsal of that seminal Nicholas Hytner production of CAROUSEL in its first run at the National Theatre. It was a small audience made up of employees and craftspeople- maybe 100 people- and I lucked into getting walked in by a friend who was working in the design office. I guess I knew there was an American import as Billy and that Patricia Routledge was playing Nettie Fowler, but that's about it. Of course it was incredibly beautiful and gorgeously staged but I still remember the reaction when Enoch Snow popped his head up into Carrie's window and the audience saw Clive Rowe's big beaming Black face: they laughed. I know the audience contained a lot of people who would have known him, so there's that aspect. But I think people were just surprised to see a Black actor in a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical and that before he appeared, Janie Dee's Carrie hadn't, in all her rhapsodizing about Mr. Snow, thought to mention that he was Black. He might get the same reaction today, but more for the fact that he has become one of the most beloved musical theatre stars of the U.K. and he is particularly known for his annual appearance as "the Dame" in the pantos at the grand and glorious Hackney Empire, which have always made that quintessential British tradition an inclusive and diverse affair, given that Hackney and environs are a very diverse area of London. (Thinking about it, he wouldn't be a bad Herbie opposite Audra....) |
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