Kiss of the Spider Woman with Audra?- Page 5

[HorseTears]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 6:06am

How do you guys keep this up? I no longer have the patience for this. It seems we have this kind of discussion on the monthly. I'm exhausted. I just cannot explain white privilege to white people anymore. I just can't.

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 11:27am

I think Broadway is whiter because more white people are interested in musicals

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 11:59am

"Someone mentioned singing the score.
I parts of the score but not the whole thing.
Is it a hard sing? Bebe did it in London - while I love her - she doesn't have a crazy range"

Chita also isn't a singer, so any singer that can belt and sustain notes can do it, even if she can't hit high notes.

Updated On: 1/16/15 at 11:59 AM

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 11:59am

"Hispanic" refers to a linguistic group (specifically, Spanish speakers), and not a racial group, so "white privilege" isn't the issue that affects casting in that specific case. As was mentioned before, many of the hispanic people in Argentina, where the story takes place, are of European descent, and are therefore just as "white" as north American people of European descent. So there is no inherent reason why a person of mixed race (e.g. Brian Stokes Mitchell) who doesn't speak Spanish is any more appropriate for the part than a person of less-mixed European descent who doesn't speak Spanish. One could make an argument that Spanish speaking-characters should be cast with Spanish-speaking actors, but there are certainly lots of examples from many racial groups of people from different ethnic groups than their character being cast in a role if they look plausible enough (e.g. Kelli O'Hara as an Italian woman or Philippino-American Adam Jacobs as an African Lion, a French student, and a middle-eastern boy, to name a few examples).

That is what makes casting of hispanic roles different from casting African roles - Hispanic people can and do belong to many different racial groups - they are united by speaking Spanish, not by a specific appearance-related characteristic that can easily be observed by an audience.

That said, I am not arguing against the casting of Latino actors in the lead roles of this show or any other - i do think it is good to give people as many chances as possible to be cast in roles that they are well-suited for. Just pointing out that matching linguistic characteristics of an actor to a role is not the same thing as matching appearance-related characteristics of an actor to a role. If the whole show is performed in English, then what other languages the actors speak don't necessarily qualify them more for a given role, though a certain cultural heritage may well accelerate the research/rehearsal process if there is a close fit between an actor and a role.

[kdogg36]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 12:02pm

This is a jar full of major characters

[blaxx]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 1:12pm

"Hispanic" refers to a linguistic group (specifically, Spanish speakers), and not a racial group, so "white privilege" isn't the issue that affects casting in that specific case.

No, totally wrong. Hispanic is not a term exclusive to the language.

His·pan·ic
/hi?spanik/
adjective
adjective: Hispanic
1. of or relating to Spain or to Spanish-speaking countries, especially those of Latin America.

That is what makes casting of hispanic roles different from casting African roles - Hispanic people can and do belong to many different racial groups - they are united by speaking Spanish, not by a specific appearance-related characteristic that can easily be observed by an audience.


That is my issue. Hispanic performers ARE available all over the Broadway community and beyond. This isn't the 80's or 90's anymore. There is no need to bend this fact because of their "look". Artists who descend from those who experience these issues are present. There is no need to mask the casting choice because of how they "may have" looked back then. Denying this fact for the sake of white casting is embarrassing. Watching someone like NPH play latino and prance around a group of actual latino artists is disgraceful.

I am much more sensitive about this piece because it deals with physical mutilation, murder, corruption, people who stood up to the government, etc. I think in 20 years we will see a post on how on earth we took the casting of these white people in these roles and ignored the presence of those who owned these voices in favor of ticket sales.

though a certain cultural heritage may well accelerate the research/rehearsal process if there is a close fit between an actor and a role.

I hope you know it is much more than accelerating a process. It is cultural ownership. If a couple of white composers wrote a show based on Latin American struggles for white people to perform, that is their issue. But I don't see why we have to quietly take it.

Washington Heights is full of mixed race people too. A lot of them look white. I would have loved to see an all white-cast open In The Heights with this same argument.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 1:47pm

I think in 20 years we will see a post on how on earth we took the casting of these white people in these roles and ignored the presence of those who owned these voices in favor of ticket sales.

@ blaxx : That is a pretty powerful statement blaxx and I am in total agreement.

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 1:54pm

I'm not arguing for an all-white cast. I agree that it is a good thing to cast people who have fewer roles available to them whenever suitable roles do become available. I similarly think that casting men in fat suits as large women is despicable, as is white performers performing in blackface, because there are already so few roles for large women in general, that to cast men in the tiny number of available roles is disgusting (e.g. Trunchbull, Edna Turnblad). I'm just saying that the characters in this particular story could well be white, so casting them in a different race isn't as important as perhaps looking for someone with a similar linguistic and cultural heritage who might be a better individual fit for the role (i.e. yes, accelerating the research process). That means casting a Spanish speaker would make more of a difference than casting someone non-white (e.g. Brian Stokes Mitchell).

[blaxx]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 2:06pm

I'm just saying that the characters in this particular story could well be white, so casting them in a different race isn't as important as perhaps looking for someone with a similar linguistic and cultural heritage who might be a better individual fit for the role

But they are not white. They may be of white descent or skin, but the characters in the show would not identify as white, that is a main concern. Valentin has a strong political position; he fights as a member of his own hispanic heritage. He speaks of his past and how poor and defenseless his family was in The Day After That. I think in times of political and cultural uprise we must be more very sensitive about these matters, because for a post 9/11 world this piece may be looked at in a very different light. It deals with themes that are very relevant to our modern world. It may have been interestingly glitzy back in the day. Dealing with rebellion, terrorism, political corruption, police violence etc. has a very different meaning now.

Updated On: 1/16/15 at 02:06 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 2:11pm

But they are not white. They may be of white descent or skin, but the characters in the show would not identify as white...

This is EXACTLY it. I am light skinned, I could pass for Italian - - - but I am not white, my parents are Puerto Rican.

It can also go the other way: My ex boyfriend is my complexion - - - he can pass for latino, but he's not - - - he's African American.

It goes much deeper than just the shade of your skin.

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 5:50pm

Does the musical still take place in Buenos Aires, as the novel does?

If so, according to Wikipedia: It is estimated up to 24 million Argentines have some degree of Italian descent (up to 60% of the total population), making it the largest ethnic group in the country.

Would that give some minor justification for Pasquale playing the role? I'm not as familiar with the text as I am with the score, so I could be totally off-base.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 5:54pm

As I recall from the script (it's been a while since I read it), there is no specific mention of what country it's taking place in, just somewhere in Latin America. I think they wanted to avoid it being tied to any specific historical group or event.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 6:46pm

Am I the only one who thinks this won't work without Harold Prince's staging?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 6:54pm

Yes.

[DAME]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 6:58pm

I am curious. Does anyone know if the projections still exist? Do they license them out?

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 9:28pm

No, it should be done with Harold Prince's original staging. It was brilliant.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 1/16/15 at 9:52pm

Had my husband and I not just come home from our first extended trip to South America this past December, I'd have no basis for weighing in on the subject of race here. (We did an amazing 14-day tour of Peru, Argentina and Brazil over the Holidays.)

Previously I would have assumed the general racial makeup of the folks in Buenos Aires would have matched the look of the folks in Mexico City or Puerto Vallarta. I would have been wrong. The faces we saw on the streets of Buenos Aires more closely resembled those of Rome or Milan. Turns out Argentina's enormous population explosion in the late 19th Century came about chiefly from European immigration (like the United States), rather than greater and greater blending of the races with their indigenous populations as happened in Mexico and other Central American countries.

Had KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN been set in Brazil, by contrast, it would have been much more likely that some (or all) of the characters would have had African blood in their makeup. Turns out that of the 7 million Africans brought in chains to this entire hemisphere during the whole span of the slave trade, 4 million of them went to Brazil alone! That mixture of Indigenous, European and African blood is what makes Brazil unique among South American countries (and actually felt to us the most like New York or Los Angeles for that reason).

Lecture over. Cast the next KISS as you see fit. Whatever the racial makeup of your cast, you would have justification based on South America's history.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 1/17/15 at 1:05am

Someone in a tree, you're totally right. I'm originally from Buenos Aires (I'm a Polish/Russian Jew though) and as a kid, I had never seen a black person in my life except for watching American TV. With that said, there was a recent wave of immigration of Western Africans that moved to Argentina, so now it's not as uncommon to see a black person there anymore, but probably not even a 1% of the total population.
I don't really care about the race of the performers as long as they can sing and dance the roles. In fact, I preferred Vanessa Williams(African American?) to Chita Rivera(Puerto Rican American) in this role. After all, they are both American women born and raised in a non-Latin American country, so if they had to be originally from the area where the story took place, they're both miscast.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 1/17/15 at 2:00pm

^Agree with you that Vanessa Williams worked for me better than Chita back in the original production, though that had as much to do with their respective ages as their innate gifts. It's funny, the Cast Album I listen to all the time is the one featuring Vanessa as well, partly for Brian Stokes Mitchell's beautiful baritone. Didn't realize till my trip to Argentina and Brazil how "colorblind" the casting of these 2 performers turns out to be!