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

[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.

[graffitiandsara.livejournal.com]

Actually, Darby and I are both white. He went to Memphis State University and I worked at a Super D Drug Store, then at Boyle Financial Services, kind of a mini Merrill Lynch type place. And what was amazing is that the racism I saw cut across age and economic status. I was 21 at the time, and I would meet people my age with similar middle class backgrounds, and college degrees and the things they would say made my jaw drop. I never saw them say things directly to a black person, but as soon as that person walked away the things that would be said made me want to throw up. In New York, for both Darby and me, the assumption someone would make until they got to really know you, was that racial comments and slurs would not be acceptable to say. It wasn't part of polite conversation. In Memphis, it was totally accepted and no one expected any white person not to be comfortable and believe all the same ugly things. Sometimes, I would look at the friends I made who were black, and wonder how much can they really trust me, what do they think I'm really thinking. There was so much outright hatred going on, how can they not expect me to have it too? Whenever I have a black friend who talks about moving South I truly become afraid for them. I know they will probably be all right, but I can't help it, I get scared about what they'll encounter.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Actually, I met you and Darby very briefly at the meet last year, but you wouldn't remember--I was there for only a couple of hours.

You're probably right. I'm sure some of it goes on here, too. I think I'm partly confined to people who share my values and language by either having lived here a long time or by the roles I play (teacher, etc) that what I see is filtered, whereas in Chicago I just was meeting people in a working class neighborhood who did say amazingly racist things.

I and most people I know in the south were brought up not to say those overtly racist things--my mother considered the n word worse than a four letter one, and made it plain at an early age that we weren't to hurt black people's feelings by that kind of talk. But yes, it is here. For sure. And along with the talk goes some action in some places. Or inaction, in the case of education and other services.

[graffitiandsara.livejournal.com]

I do remember you, I just thought from the wording of your reply that you didn't remember us and got a mistaken impression of the cause of our experiences in Memphis. I was very surprised at how blatant the racism was. I was also surprised at the level of hatred and resentment. It wasn't in front of blacks that I heard this kind of talk, it was when the audience was white only, but it was still shocking how often and how extreme it was.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Right, and what I really, really hate about those situations is the assumption that I'm going to agree. It makes me have to engage them in some way to show that I don't condone their views.

[ann1962]

In Memphis, it was totally accepted and no one expected any white person not to be comfortable and believe all the same ugly things.

Mine was West Lafayette Indiana. Purdue University. We were there 3 years and every single day I was in public, I heard a racist remark against some group of people. Foreigners, black, gypsies, Middle Eastern ....

It was a calm racism that was rarely challenged. It was completely and overwhelmingly accepted by the majority of people around us.

I have lived in many places in the US and this was the most vocal and the most overtly racist of any of them. Until living there, I didn't realize the depth of hatred that some people have in their heart.

[graffitiandsara.livejournal.com]

Isn't it awful to live with that kind of crap showing up on a daily basis. It got so frustrating to meet someone who you liked and thought was going to be a new friend and within an hour to hear them say something that is just so hateful you just can't walk away fast enough. I was so happy to get back to my NY friends!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

It is so sad. And it's hard to know how to react to it, too. My son got fired from a job in San Francisco for challenging co-workers on their racist comments. Knowing him, it was probably not tactful, but I was proud, nonetheless. It can be a little frightening to challenge people--I often find that no response at all and a shocked look can work for a lot of people. But occasionally it's better to ignore it, although it's not a good feeling when you let it pass.

The most overtly stated racism I encountered from a student (aside from the Chinese who hated the Japanese) was from a Mexican woman who felt comfortable writing a whole essay essentially supporting all the worst sterotypes of African Americans.