Artists and their privileges

[mamculuna]

Warning: this is a rant about Edward Albee.

Some of you read my recent post about my friend's outstanding performance in Albee's Sylvia, or The Goat. I saw her today and was horrified to hear that Albee had pulled the production rights and they had to shut down in the middle of the run. Now I do believe a playwright should have some control of his work, but in this case, I think Albee made a huge and tragic mistake. His reason for denying rights? Two were artistic though very nitpicky to my mind, but I'd accept them: the director had too much experience in opera direction and one of the actors was too short (!) for the role. OK, it's his play. They might be great but if he hates opera and short people, he hates them. His play.

The reason that horrifies and enrages me is this: a black actor was cast in a role that Albee considers the "bad guy," and Albee thinks that's unacceptable in the South. This role is in no way demeaning to black people or in any way stereotypical. It's a writer who interviews a friend, discovers his friend's infidelity, and thinks he should inform the friend's wife. Considering that the friend's inamorata is a goat, I think the writer looks reasonably moral. And we won't even discuss the wife's behavior (b/c it would spoil the play which right now I think no one should ever, ever see--but maybe I'll change my mind later). The company that produced this works very hard in the minority communities here, offering a workshop for actors and annual productions, among many other things. Like many companies, they frequently cast actors in roles that aren't race specific.

The only problem I see here is that Albee thinks the South is some especially benighted region, incapable of seeing African-Americans as three-diimensional humans susceptible to self-righteousness, misjudgement, and all those natural errors of our species.

Now if he said this role could never be played by any minority anywhere, I guess I'd think it weird, but to single out the South this way infuriates me. Does he think racism ends at the Virginia-Maryland border? Does he think that the four of us who sat hearing about this (two black, two white) somehow can't see the play in the same way? What. Was. In . His. Head?

I want artists to own their own work, but somehow it seems that this crosses a line I can't quite identify to myself yet.

Comments

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Hunh, that's weird, and it reminds me of people misguidedly thinking the Merchant of Venice is anti-Semitic. I think I just read an interview with a black actor where he was talking about not being offered "bad" roles because people are afraid of racism (altho look what Samuel L. Jackson did with the role of a "bad" man in Pulp Fiction). That's too bad.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and the killer part for me was singling out this part of the country. Have to wonder if he's ever been here. I have black friends who've moved down here to get away from the racism in the north...

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Have to wonder if he's ever been here

I don't think so (I think he's spent most of his life in NYC), but I could be wrong (altho a play like The Death of Bessie Smith wld seem to confirm that).

[carakarena.livejournal.com]

Those reasons seems really random and control-freakish. It sounds like the reasons that someone with an unstable personality would give.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

I've read an interview/article about Albee just this week; I'm trying to remember where, so I can find and link to it, and of course I can't. It seemed to suggest that his is a somewhat difficult personality. I wasn't so surprised to read the gist of mamculuna's post, though his reasons are ... odd.

[winegodeatsyou.livejournal.com]

That was what I got from meeting Albee.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That's bizarre and wrong, and I feel really bad for your friend, the company, and for the black actor, who was probably delighted to land that role.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I don't know the black actor personally but friends say he has just withdrawn from the whole thing. It would be terrible if he lost the connection with this company, which has some fine professionals and could help his career. But I can understand how he'd want to minimize his involvement with this mess.

[randomways.livejournal.com]

Actually, all he's doing is revealing the compassing and willful ignorance lots of non-Southerners have about the South. I pretty much chalk it up to them needing a bugaboo to make themselves feel better about their own attitudes and let them shrivel away, stuck in a time that, ironically, most of the South is in the process of moving beyond.

(I'm finishing up two stories right now that deal with race relations in the South, and both are rather brutal in their examination of both white and black psyches...I've long since given up trying to please the people who'd prefer vulgar politics to honest art. And, yeah, that does sound pretentious. But I don't mean it to be.)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Brave Random. And I think it's fair to do that, and time for it as well.

I think the most dehumanizing thing that can be done to the "other" (male/female, black/white, etc.) is to make them off-limts for artistic exploration.

And you're so right too about non-Southerners. The beams in their own eyes, indeed.

BTW, do you publish your writing anywhere?

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

I have to say: it's arguable. No more, but no less.

Albee's pret'near a hero to me. Met him only once. Solid. His work inspired me tremendously.
/shrug/
A voice from the cheap seats.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I loved Albee until this, though I'd heard theater people complain about his nitpicking on productions. The nits I don't mind, it's singling out the South as more racist than the rest of the country. Sorry, but it's not. I grew up here and spend about half my time here and the rest in Chicago and San Francisco. I don't see the differences.

Racism is alive and well everywhere. I'd still quibble with his choice not to allow African Americans full humanity by letting them be cast as less than perfect, but if that's what he wants to do, then he should apply it to the whole country. (Though maybe he could let Canadian productions have a pass? Sort of joking, but really I've never spent enough time there to make a judgment about the state of racism there).

[winegodeatsyou.livejournal.com]

Albee's own racism is inherant in his assumptions about placement. Perhaps the fact that the South has a larger AFrican-American middle class than anywhere else in the country may have something to do with this.

Having met Albee a few years ago disillusioned me to him.

Anyway, this is your ol' pal winegodeatsyou, who, having gone through a intense reevalution of his priorties, misses your commentary.

I hope you don't mind being re-friended.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Hey, guy! Glad to hear from you again. Let's refriend, (at least until we both discover our flists have populations like Mumbai and we have to start from scratch again). Would really like to see what's happening with you.

All the Southerners who've commented have understood what the problem is, for sure.

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

You'd call Albee racist?
wow

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

It is true that Northerner's have a prejudice towards the South.
I was explaining this to a Canadian the other day - that I have had African-American friends who refuse to go below the Mason-Dixon line. He asked, "where are you from?" I told him - that I lived in Kansas for about 17 years. "Well isn't that the south?" No I informed him, that's the midwest. "No, Chicago is the midwest," said the Canadian. "Chicago is North." We went on a bit like that, until I finally explained - it goes back to allegiances during the Civil War. The states that fought for the Separatists and the States that fought for the Union. Slave states vs. Free States.
"But that happened over 100 years ago," said the Canadian. "Yeah, well, people are nutty, they hold on to stuff for a long time."

Truth is? Prejudice and Racism - not limited to a geographic region on the globe. You go to Africa, Asia, England, France, Canadia, Australia (same friend who refuses to go beneath the Mason-Dixon line, hates Australia by the way), Sweden, Germany, Israel, Puerto Rico, South America, USA - you will find horrible instances of both.
But people have a tendency to be a bit myopic about it, I guess.
One of my friends believes everywhere outside the US is nicer, that the people aren't as prejudiced outside of America. Her logic makes me laugh. I've seen it everywhere I've been.

In Albee's case - it's possible that he traveled through the South during the Civil Rights decade and had some nasty experiences, which may inform his views on the region. Wouldn't be the least surprised if that were the case. We tend to trust our own experiences and sense memories of things when making judgements, at least I know I do. Without taking into consideration the possibility that our memory of the event may be off or our perception could be. Questioning one's own perception of things is a tough thing to do, I think.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Very good points. In my experience, it's been very interesting to see how much more difficult relations appear to be between the races out of the South--and I have some African-American friends who find the South more comfortable, rathe than less. I can definitely understand why people, black and white, who haven't been here have misperceptions, and definitely there is racism here. But in some ways, in some parts of the community (probably the parts mostly likely to see Albee plays,after all), I think that people of both races here have had to face their past and try to take steps to get over it. And oddly, color-blind casting in plays is actually a good way to promote that. In my belief, for sure.

But Albee probably wouldn't have cast James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, either (and maybe nobody!)

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I do think, looking from outside the USA, that it's still acceptable to portray white rural Southerners in a way that no-onwould now accept if directed at any other subculture (see Caleb in BtVS for an example).

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Indeed. They're the officially accepted bad guys.

[altaego.livejournal.com]

A performance of Huck Finn with a black Huck and white Jim was denied broadcast by the copyright holder.

This link may only work for Salon subscribers (http://salon.com/ent/wire/2005/05/21/huck_finn_cast/index.html)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, randomways makes an interesting poing about how they're different. Thanks for the link.

[graffitiandsara.livejournal.com]

I'm a great believer in color-blind casting (I haven't figured out exactly how I feel about the Huck Finn thing, though, very confusing) so I don't agree with Albee's choice, however...

Regarding Albee's view of the South, it's hard to have an accurate view of the South. Obviously there is racism everywhere in this country and the North doesn't have a moral high ground to stand on, but the experience Darby and I had in the South was really very shocking to us. We lived in Memphis for 3 years while he got his Masters at Memphis State, and I couldn't wait to get back to NY. A major reason for this was the quantity and quality of racism we encountered that was beyond anything I had ever experienced anywhere.

I know that there was racism in the town I grew up in, when black families started to move into one of the more expensive areas, petitions were circulated to try and stop them. So I know there were racist people around me, but I never actually heard anyone make a racist comment directly to me. In Memphis, I couldn't escape from the racism. It was so incredibly common for people I didn't know that well to spew ugliness beyond what I would have imagined expecting me to be right there with them. I got to a point where friendships were based on people not being that bad, because if I avoided everyone who was racist I would literally have had to go into isolation. I understand that our experience is not the entire South, you prove that to me, but if Albee had any kind of a similar exposure to ours, without any counter-balance it might explain his behavior. Not make it right but explain it.

When I was in high school I read Gone With the Wind just to see what all the talk was about, and on the cover blurb about Martha Mitchell it said that she didn't even know that the South had lost the Civil War until she was 11 (or some similar age). I read that, and laughed because how it was so ridiculous, and how could anyone think that was a good thing. Then I moved to Memphis and sadly it all made sense.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

That is very interesting, and maybe is true here but I'm insulated by my own race. Where did you encounter it in Memphis?

I taught for years here in a community college where the black and white students were of roughly similar economic status, and also this is the home of state government and a huge military base. That might also make this city different--but I'd think Memphis would have some ameliorating things, too. Hmmm.

I will say that the whole public/private school thing here is extremely racist, as well as the arrest record of AfricanAmericans. And since I'm white, I never see the worst stuff.

[wombatina.livejournal.com]

wow

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I just heard about a cross burning in Durham NC (home of Duke) but also a gang of white off-duty cops beating a black man in Milwaukee. It's bad, but bad all over.