The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0064 Monday, 4 February 2008
[1] From: Fiebig,Jeremy <
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Date: Friday, 1 Feb 2008 12:46:34 -0600
Subj: RE: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
[2] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Friday, 01 Feb 2008 14:23:44 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
[3] From: Dan Venning <
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Date: Friday, 1 Feb 2008 15:57:51 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
[4] From: John W. Kennedy <
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Date: Friday, 01 Feb 2008 17:55:04 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
[5] From: Robert Projansky <
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Date: Friday, 1 Feb 2008 16:33:31 -0800
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
[6] From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Saturday, 2 Feb 2008 11:13:56 -0800 (PST)
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
[7] From: Kathy Dent <
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Date: Monday, 4 Feb 2008 13:32:29 +0000
Subj: RE: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
[8] From: Hardy M. Cook <
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Date: Monday, February 04, 2008
Subj: RE: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Fiebig,Jeremy <
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Date: Friday, 1 Feb 2008 12:46:34 -0600
Subject: 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Comment: RE: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
I recall some graduate research by Jason Narvy at Mary Baldwin College's
M.Litt program that indicated a high likelihood that Aaron (and other
notable "Moors") in Shakespeare were not necessarily black or in black
face. I seem to recall the implication that while not black, these
characters were likely also not white.
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Friday, 01 Feb 2008 14:23:44 -0500
Subject: 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Sure, Aaron can be played by a white man. And Titus can be played by a
female dwarf. While we're at it, let's cast Richard Griffith as Lavinia.
But please don't call it Shakespeare's play.
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dan Venning <
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Date: Friday, 1 Feb 2008 15:57:51 -0500
Subject: 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Dear Sam:
I would argue that nothing in production "has" to be anything. A (very
amateur, it seems) production of Titus Andronicus by the Hudson
Shakespeare Company in 2003 cast a thin Caucasian woman as Aaron (photos
available at
http://hudsonshakespeare.org/Past%20Productions/titus_andronicus.htm; I
had nothing to do with and didn't see this production). A Japanese
production in 2004 in Saitana used Kenichi Okamoto, who isn't black
(didn't see this one either).
However, I wouldn't argue that directors who cast a black Aaron are
being "slavish." After all, the text does *say* he's black; he himself
comments on it (and his own sense of alienation-and this, I think, is at
least part of why Aaron is black in the text; he is perceived by all the
other characters as alien, exotic, foreign, and yes, dangerous, and this
may be part of what leads him to desire to destroy them all). It's no
more slavish than a director's making Don Armado a Spaniard, or Richard
III a hunchback.
Moreover, while the blackness does mark Aaron as foreign, it doesn't
necessarily mark him as a threat. A Moorish ambassador visited London in
1600-01 (about ten years after the play was written), and wasn't seen as
particularly threatening as much as an attractive spectacle.
Schoolchildren who studied Latin and Roman history would have been
taught of the great Roman hero Scipio Africanus, who was so called
because of the color of his skin.
I'm also not confident that Aaron is an example of "Elizabethan racism."
He's given some of the most moving lines and scenes in the play, and is
one of the most three-dimensional characters, although still a villain.
Clearly modeled after Barabas in Marlowe's Jew of Malta, perhaps he,
like Shylock (or Barabas himself, in my opinion), can be seen not as an
*example* of outdated stereotypes and racist ideas, but as a *comment
upon* such views, and upon the violence that can be created by
alienation and xenophobia.
Dan Venning
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John W. Kennedy <
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Date: Friday, 01 Feb 2008 17:55:04 -0500
Subject: 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Sam Small <
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>Did not the sight of a black face in Elizabethan
>times mean foreign?
"It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad
It's knowing they're /foreign/ that makes them so mad!"
>Apart from the few
"Few," forsooth?
>lines (that could be altered/removed) that refer to Aaron's
>skin tone why couldn't a white man play the part?
White men often have. (Indeed, the best Aaron I ever saw was the late
Eric Tavares; his lapidary reading of "Zounds! ye whore, is black so
base a hue?" still sounds in my ears after three decades.)
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robert Projansky <
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Date: Friday, 1 Feb 2008 16:33:31 -0800
Subject: 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
>Does Aaron have to be black? . . . Is this not masked
>racism? Did not the sight of a black face in Elizabethan
>times mean foreign? other-continental? alien? plainly, a
>threat? Far be it from me to be politically correct but didn't
>Shakespeare use the contemporary prejudice that the
>audience would have been smitten and lay it on with a
>trowel? Apart from the few lines (that could be altered/
>removed) that refer to Aaron's skin tone why couldn't a
>white man play the part? My point is - do we have to project
>Elizabethan racism on a modern, unsuspecting audience?
A: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, see below, and yes.
Doesn't the way one is treated because of one's race and culture have
some effect on one's character and personality and how one reacts to
such treatment? Is Aaron really an ethnically fungible character except
for the mentions of his race?
And take away one of Shakespeare's two big roles for black actors? Why
not the other one too? Maybe cast Othello as a Florentine? And why not
make Shylock a Genovese instead of a Jew?
In the 1984 John Barton TV series, Playing Shakespeare, David Suchet and
Patrick Stewart each had a go at Shylock. Patrick Stewart said he saw
him as essentially an "outsider" and tried to play that rather than his
Jewishness. David Suchet played him as a Jew, i.e., as written, and his
assay is exponentially better. Stewart's attempted de-Semitization of
the character plainly brought him down. Maybe he was squeamish about
giving full rein to an inevitably anti-Semitic portrayal, perhaps more
so because Suchet, himself Jewish, was right there. Suchet, however,
showed no such inhibitions, so he and WS carried the day.
As for projecting racism on a modern, unsuspecting audience, who doesn't
expect Shakespeare to reflect an Elizabethan world-view that's 400 years
old? Producers could perhaps post a warning, like, Please Take Notice:
Black Person Portrayed Unfavorably Within, or, Contents May Offend; For
Mature Audiences Only.
Where do you stop messing with the play? Even if you could protect
today's tender-minded audience from the idea that black in humans means
wickedness just by casting an Aryan Aaron, how would you protect your
audience from the no longer universally held notion that a raped and
mutilated young woman is herself a shameful thing? Instead of killing
Lavinia should Titus give her a set of prosthetics? Maybe some of that
conflict in those plays should be rewritten too in favor of trying to
get those people to get along with each other instead of resorting to
violence all the time.
Best,
Bob Projansky
[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Saturday, 2 Feb 2008 11:13:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Sam Small asks:
>Did not the sight of a black face in Elizabethan
>times mean foreign? other-continental? alien?"
And Satanic as well. When Emilia begrimes, not Iago's, but Desdemona's
union with Othello as a "most filthy bargain," I believe this is sermon
code for devil's compact. Has any editor noted this?
Curious,
Joe Egert
[7]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kathy Dent <
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Date: Monday, 4 Feb 2008 13:32:29 +0000
Subject: 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Comment: RE: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Sam Small
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>Apart from the few lines (that could be
>altered/removed) that refer to Aaron's skin
>tone why couldn't a white man play the part?
>My point is - do we have to project Elizabethan
>racism on a modern, unsuspecting audience?
>A few lines? Casting decisions are often hung on
>less than this.
It is clearly central to the characterisation of Aaron that he is black:
it is as pertinent as Shylock's Jewishness. Of course, we might suppose
that a white Aaron could play if the rest of the cast were black....
(it's been done with Othello), but if the argument is that a modern
audience is unsuspecting about Elizabethan ideas of race and otherness,
Titus is a good place for them to learn. Does Sam Small assume that
(unsuspecting) modern audiences are innocent and not implicated in the
discourses of racism?
Kathy Dent
[8]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Hardy M. Cook <
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Date: Monday, February 04, 2008
Subject: 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
Comment: RE: SHK 19.0058 A Titus Tangent of Tone
>Off on a tangent from the current discussion of Titus leads me to ask
>this. Does Aaron have to be black? Of the versions I have seen the
>director slavishly casts the ebullient Aaron as black as treacle. Is
>this not masked racism? Did not the sight of a black face in Elizabethan
>times mean foreign? other-continental? alien? plainly, a threat? Far be
>it from me to be politically correct but didn't Shakespeare use the
>contemporary prejudice that the audience would have been smitten and lay
>it on with a trowel? Apart from the few lines (that could be
>altered/removed) that refer to Aaron's skin tone why couldn't a white
>man play the part? My point is - do we have to project Elizabethan
>racism on a modern, unsuspecting audience?
This submission troubles me because I cannot figure out what Sam is
asking or rather what his point is in posting this submission?
Is the issue one of color or gender -blind casting?
Or is the concern with displaying the skills of a particular white actor?
Or is this submission yet another post intended to throw darts at
anything that vaguely promotes or suggests Postmodern thinking? Frankly,
I am getting tired of the band of usual suspects who almost on cue chime
up anytime someone utters anything politically or intellectually
progressive on this list. The tenacity and predictability of this crew
astonishes me.
However, back on track, let me make an offering that is related, I
think, to this subject: I saw the so-called "photo negative" production
of _Othello_ with Patrick Stewart as Othello at the Shakespeare Theatre
in 1997. I found it to be tremendously illuminating. One of my favorite
Washington, DC, area actors Craig Wallace played the Duke. Before I saw
this particular production, I had convinced myself that the Duke was at
least one more non-racist, other than Desdemona, white character in the
world of the play. However, Craig Wallace, a black man, enriched my
understanding of the play by problematizing* my previous view of it
through the way he delivered the Duke's "I think this tale would win my
daughter, too." Wallace spewed forth venomous hatred as he spoke in a
manner and intensity that I had never heard associated with this
particular line before. His reading changed my entire impression about
the possibilities for performing this text, and I thank him (and I have
thanked him personally.) for this fascinating reading. By the way,
Patrick Stewart is the person who used the term (perhaps even coined the
term) "photo negative" in a quotation included in an essay about the
production by Ray Greene: "I call it a photo negative," Stewart says.
"One of my hopes is that it will continue to say what a conventional
production of Othello would say about racism and prejudice. It might
even say it in a more intense and possibly provocative way by reversing
the usual racial characteristics."
(http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/articles.aspx?&id=130)
*"Martha, there's one more of those confangled, LIBERAL words, again. I
guess I should be getting to my reply to the dern commies."
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