American Players Theatre
Decision is traditional, speaks to play’s meaning
Casting white actor in black role stirs controversy.
The casting of a white actor as a lightskinned black man in American Players Theatre’s production of “Blood Knot” has generated sharp criticism from other theater leaders around the country, and a related petition.
Recognizing the controversy, APT has explained the casting as a nuanced attempt to honor South African playwright Athol Fugard’s intentions. But other theater leaders, including Milwaukee Repertory Theater managing director Chad Bauman, don’t accept that reasoning, and are using the discussion to argue for an end to the “practice of white actors playing characters of color.”
APT, a prestigious, classically oriented theater company in Spring Green, is performing Fugard’s drama about a pair of brothers, both black but one lightskinned enough to pass for white. Black actor Gavin Lawrence and white actor Jim DeVita — an APT core company member and one of the state’s leading actors — portray the two men.
Fugard, who is white, portrayed that role himself in the 1961 premiere in South Africa; a defiant statement in the apartheid era, when a black man and white man had not performed together on stage before. That production started a tradition of white actors playing the role, including Fugard himself again on Broadway in 1986.
While noting that history in his review of the production for the Journal Sentinel, Mike Fischer criticized the casting decision in the APT show. “I couldn’t get past the knowledge that I was watching a white man playing a black man, in a country (ours) where that sort of appropriation has a long and troubled history. APT would never cast DeVita as a black man in an August Wilson play. It shouldn’t have cast him as a black man in this one.”
Fischer also noted that the character portrayed by DeVita expressed loathing for his status as a black man and simultaneous doubt as to whether he could ever truly pass as white, with that character adding that whiteness is about more than clothes and skin color.
Veteran theater artist Ron OJ Parson, who is black, directed the production, but APT, led by artistic director Brenda
DeVita, made the decision to cast Jim DeVita before hiring Parson. In its statement, APT said its board approved the casting.
In an interview with Fischer, Parson said he took the job because of the prestige of APT and the challenge the play presented, but if he had been starting from scratch, he might have cast the role differently.
A Change.org petition launched by Michael Barker, managing director of the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut, cites APT’s “Blood Knot” (and a St. Louis Municipal Opera Theater show that used a white actress in an Asian role in an excerpt from “The King and I”) in calling for end to casting white actors in such parts.
“I recognize (that APT) is a wonderful institution with a lot of great history,” said Barker, who attended many APT shows as a youth.
APT’s eminence, Barker believes, makes it even more necessary to have conversations about this. In 2018, the discussion has to be not only about race-appropriate casting but also about opportunities for artists of color, he said in a telephone interview.
Barker acknowledges that the history of “Blood Knot” makes it a complicated case. He does not want to shame or slap people.
But he said it is essential that organizations led by white people, such as his theater, have conversations about how they change the field and change themselves.
Bauman, who has co-signed the petition, referred to such casting as “whitewashing” in the subject line of an email to colleagues calling attention to it. Leaders of theaters in Louisville, Ky., Portland, Ore., and other cities have also signed the petition.
The petition cites an Actors Equity Association study of Equity contracts from 2013 to 2015 disclosing that 71% of principal contracts went to Caucasians, but only 7% to African-Americans and 2% to Asian-Americans.
“We appreciate the feedback that we are hearing and we understand that there is a history of casting white people in roles written for actors of color. We agree that this is wrong,” APT wrote in a statement posted June 21, following opening night and Fischer’s review.
However, APT sees this casting as a different situation. The company says it talked through casting options with people of color inside and outside APT before deciding that using a black actor and a white actor portraying brothers best served the play’s metaphorical intentions.
Jim DeVita, a playwright as well as an actor, contacted Fugard for his feedback about the casting. Fugard gave APT permission to release his reply:
“When I was asked to stage ‘Blood Knot’ at the Signature Theatre in 2012, I cast, like I have always done, a black actor to play Zach and a white actor to play Morris. That being said, this is not to say that Morris should or could not profitably be played by a mixed-race actor as well. But perhaps it will help you to hear me say the following — during apartheid, as you may know, or soon will know, racial classification was extremely arbitrary and often rested on nothing more than the racial prejudices of the classification board and what they regarded as ‘other.’ I have always seen ‘Blood Knot’ as an extended metaphor, which the use of a white actor serves to exaggerate. Positing a white and black body as having come out of the same mother goes some way to express the ambiguities of the time, and moreover, underline that race is but a construct. I wish you only the best and am grateful that you are struggling with these issues. I hope I was able to help.”
As expressed in its statement, APT sees “Blood Knot” as a play about “black and white relations.” To that point, the company writes:
“A white man in the role of Morris can act as an indictment of white people’s collective ability to make heinous choices when they wield that power over someone of a different race.”
In a strongly worded statement posted Friday by APT, actor Gavin Lawrence said “If what you come away with after having experienced ‘Blood Knot’ is a problem with the casting, then I humbly submit that you’ve missed the point.”
Citing an intense scene of abuse in the play, Lawrence said the presence of an actor who appears “absolutely white” “forces a white audience to see itself in that very direct reflection of white male privilege that we are in the throes of in America today, whether it be in the White House or the offices of many artistic and managing directors of this country’s regional theatres.”
APT is performing “Blood Knot” through Sept. 28 in Spring Green.