Focus on skin colour is maddening
Re Martha Henry’s Twelfth Night falls short, Review, May 31 Karen Fricker’s review of Stratford’s Twelfth Night is maddening, saddening and disappointing.
Fricker’s review states: “Three of the four romantic leads in the show are played by Black actors, and the Sea Captain (Matthew G. Brown) who rescues shipwrecked Viola (Sarah Afful) is also Black, and speaks with a slight African accent. This is intriguing — Illyria, where the play is set, was in Shakespeare’s time understood to be in the Western Balkans; is Henry resetting the play in the Middle East or Africa, or making some reference to immigration?”
So the reviewer can suspend belief that we are in 2017 rather than the 16th century; that we are in Stratford, Ont., rather than the Balkans; that the 21st-century actors have significantly different views than the 16th-century characters they are portraying. All of these anachronisms can be overlooked — but skin colour or accent? No, that is the bridge too far.
To use and impose historical references, linked to diverse casting, as a centrepiece of her critical analysis is a step in the wrong direction for Fricker’s contemporary audience.
A quick look at the Ottoman Empire’s history suggests the presence of people with dark skin (both those of Turkish descent and their slaves from Northern Africa) in the Balkans at the time of the play’s authorship. In fact, based on the reviewer’s apparent world view, this is the only anachronism in the production that might be historically arguable.
But this is not about historical accuracy — this is about live theatre’s unique opportunity to suspend mere realities and look for deeper truths. The first step in this process is simple: hire the best actor for the role — whose job it is to convince the audience they are who they say they are. In our diverse society, audiences are sophisticated enough to understand that.
When Canada’s two major festivals, Stratford and Shaw, endeavour to be inclusive in their casting and then to find themselves criticized, it creates a negative reaction to the inclusivity that I and many of my colleagues have fought mightily for over the past 30 years. Brenda Kamino, Toronto