I prefer Denzel Washington in Much Ado About Nothing - his race is beside the point - that the richest and most powerful character in the film is a black man is incidental. He's just a great actor playing a great part, alongside a load of Americans in an English film about Italy - hurrah!
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I haven't seen Anne Boleyn with Jodie Turner-Smith but I do think that perhaps casting a black actor as a white queen might give us insight into the character once we have ditched all of our preconceptions about that character. Drama is about more than the story and the players, it gives us an opportunity to explore what it means to be human, to look at the everyday afresh.
I can't suspend my disbelief, hubby says I don't "get lost" in a film like he does. I prefer books.since my grandson got him hooked on the Umbrella Academy last week,that's it! Taken over from Games of Thrones.Me, happily sitting in the conservatory with a book.
Surely with Shakespeare plays, it's about the words rather than the melanin content of the actors? Nobody bats an eyelid about an old geezer playing Hamlet. I suppose eyebrows might be raised if he tried to play Romeo, though.
It's what the audience is supposed to do .;. theatre is a two way experience.
so no problem with a white woman playing Martin Luther King then?
If the play was about racism then reversing the races of the cast could make some very strong points.
Acting is not about verisimilitude, any more than painting is about making something that looks like a photograph 😑
Supposing a straight black actor was cast as the lead in a play about Derek Jarman’s life … would that be problematic … would the colour get in the way more than the ‘straightness’? If so … why?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I can't get past all these clean people with shiny hair in the ' historical ' dramas my husband is fond of. When people are killed, they rarely bleed on their costumes. The horses don't sttt either.
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“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
In many shows (e.g. Lion King) people play animals.
I'm in agreement with @Dovefromabove here. It's all about the suspension of disbelief.
Nobody bats an eyelid about an old geezer playing Hamlet. I suppose eyebrows might be raised if he tried to play Romeo, though.
Supposing a straight black actor was cast as the lead in a play about Derek Jarman’s life … would that be problematic … would the colour get in the way more than the ‘straightness’? If so … why?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
When people are killed, they rarely bleed on their costumes. The horses don't sttt either.