Do epithets have a place onstage?
Theatre companies face complex questions.
This article discusses an offensive racial slur in the context of its use in two theatre productions.
It is often called the most offensive word in the English language. Its use by a white journalist and a white professor led to recent high-profile controversies at the New York Times and the University of Ottawa respectively. But what happens when the N-word is spoken onstage — as it is in two productions at the Shaw and Stratford festivals this summer, in both instances by white characters? And why did Shaw cancel another show this summer that included the word?
These questions are complex and fraught. As those involved in these Shaw and Stratford productions underline, the context for the use of the N-word in a play matters, as does how it’s handled in rehearsal and framed by the theatre.
This is far from the first time the Nword has featured in high-profile Canadian theatre productions, and the current discussion is doubtless connected to heightened sensibilities following the murder of George Floyd being filmed and viewed around the world, bringing light to the many Black people who have died at the hands of law enforcement before and after him. The most senior Black theatre artist implicated in the current discussions — director Philip Akin — finds this attention both belated and likely a flash in the pan.
“There’s lots of Black people who don’t want to use the word and don’t like the word,” said Akin, noting that such sensitivities are “a complicated subject developed by race and socioeconomics, and where you grew up and all of that kind of stuff.”
He argues that the current attention to the word is driven by white people’s concerns.
“I think we as theatre artists really hope that we can make a change, but then I turn around and say, ‘If what you’re trying to do is round off all the edges of theatre, all those sharp, uncomfortable pieces of our theatre, are we not working towards undercutting any value that we have in the arts?’ ”
E.B. Smith, who is an actor, director of artistic inclusion of the Cleveland Play House in Ohio and chair of the Stratford Festival’s anti-racism committee, sees value in discussions of the N-word and other slurs among people who may not have previously been on the receiving end of them: “There are ways to introduce people to the experience of being isolated and affected by language like this when they have no recourse to respond,” said Smith, who identifies as a mixed-race Black man.
Akin is directing Shaw’s current production of the 1955 play “Trouble in Mind” by the African-American writer and actor Alice Childress. “Trouble in Mind” depicts escalating tensions and misunderstandings behind the scenes of a fictional Broadway-bound play that features a cast of Black and white actors.
The N-word is spoken twice, first by the white stage manager during a reading of a scene from the play-within-a play. The second time, it’s the white director of the play-within-a-play who says it, in a speech “about how he isn’t racist,” explained Akin.
“He happens to use like six shotgun racist words that can splatter the entire spectrum of humanity.”
Shaw artistic director Tim Carroll, who is white, selected “Trouble in Mind” out of a list of several dozen plays by Black writers shared with him by Akin, who is a member of Shaw’s board of directors and has directed at the festival numerous times. Removing the N-word was never part of conversations around the play between Carroll and Akin. “I don’t think anybody would ever ask that of me,” said Akin.
There was “maybe one 15-minute conversation that I can remember” about the word during “Trouble in Mind” rehearsals, said Akin. Starting the rehearsal process on Zoom was helpful, he said. “Every time you go and have race-based conversations in the rehearsal hall, everybody’s missile defence system goes up. If I’m talking about race in the macro, it’s landing on people in the micro. It becomes about them and so it can often quickly feel like a personal attack … But with Zoom, because of the technology and people sitting in their own homes, there was virtually no defensive pushback,” said Akin.
This Shaw season was also meant to feature a concert version of “Assassins,” the time-bending musical by Stephen
Sondheim and John Weidman that brings together all the people who ever tried or succeeded in assassinating American presidents. In the show, John Wilkes Booth sings the word “N-lover” in reference to Abraham Lincoln, whom he assassinated. Complications arose around the use of the word, which Carroll and Shaw executive director Tim Jennings, who is also white, attribute to the complex background of this concert production.
Shaw had programmed a fully staged version of
“Assassins” in its 2020 season, which was being rehearsed online when that season was cancelled. A different director was in charge of the
2021 concert version, which was planned and rehearsed quickly. The Nword was not included in the 2020 rehearsals; when the process was picked up this year “the substitution of language had unwittingly become established as a fact even though the rights holders had not been alerted to the change,” said the Shaw Festival in a statement issued in August (“rights holders” refers to the licensing agency Music Theatre International). The Shaw company performed the show once before receiving word from the rights holders that they wanted the show performed as written because they “felt that Booth’s character, along with the context of the song, makes the word crucial,” according to the Shaw statement.
Because there would not be time for meaningful consideration of the inclusion of the word, Carroll and Jennings cancelled the remainder of the concert run of “Assassins,” noting that the theatre hopes to stage the show in future. They underlined in an interview that the cancellation was not because the racial slur is necessarily unacceptable in “Assassins,” but because “the process in getting this production to stage was flawed … and we think it would be better to ore start the process with a very clear un-derstanding ,” said Jennings.
Dathan B. Williams, a Black American theatre artist and educator, knows “As-sassins” well and notes that it has been controversial since it premiered in 1990.“People felt that‘ Assassins’ was going to encourage people togo out and kill other presidents ,” said Williams, who is asso-ciate artistic director of the Harlem Shakespeare Festival in New York City and spent two season sat the Stratford Festival int he early 1990s, where he won the John Hirsch Prize for most promis-ing young actor.
Williams does not agree with the view that “Assassins” promotes violence against political leaders. He believe sit is about “what happens when citizens be-come disillusioned with the American dream .” The character of Booth “viewed himself as a patriot. He viewed himself as wanting to return the country back to where it was… Lincoln put things in place that made him feel that the coun-try was being removed from what he wanted ,” said Williams.
Williams would not be in favour of removing the N-word from any produc-tion of “Assassins ”:“If you decide to cut that term, you decide tone gate history… you decide it is something you do not wish to discuss because of the difficul-ties of discussing what is being said .” Hearing the word being sung “may hurt you. It may for a temporary moment pull you outside of the musical. But when you listen to what is being said, it makes complete sense. It is part of the journey that must be ho-noured when we decide to do this musical ,” said Williams.
Shaw received blow back on comment strand sun-der media reports about the “Assassins” cancella-tion and on social media. Negative commenters “either said this is censor-ship and you can’t do that ,” said Jennings .“Or they felt that they wanted to start a culture war. And frankly, they argued well amongst them-selves .”
The Stratford Festival production in which the N-word is spoken is “Three Tall Women” by the late American play-wright Edward Albee, who was white, as is the director, Diana Le Blanc. The el-derly central character of the play, who is based on Albee’s adoptive mother, speaks other racist and antisemitic epi-thets, as well as the N-word.
There was no discussion around re-moving the N-word from the produc-tion, said Stratford’ s artistic director, Antoni Cimolino, “because we felt it was intrinsic to the message of the play .” Stratford brought two Black cultural consultants into the rehearsal process, Smith and Mu konzi Mu syoki, to “ex-plore the impact” of the N-word and other slurs with the cast, and to create materials for the public “to better un-derstand and deal with the power of those words ,” said Cimolino, who is white.
With “Three Tall Women ,” said Smith “you’ve got a playwright like Albee who is trying to illuminate the reality of what a bigot looks like. It doesn’t feel like he’s trying to excuse her use of the language. It sounds like he’s trying to illuminate what happens in these spaces where people feel safe to express that kind of prejudice.”
Since last summer, the Stratford Festi-val has undertaken numerous actions around racism and other forms of bias and discrimination. Smith organized an online forum called “Words Matter” around the question of the N-word and other slurs in “Three Tall Women .” He believes it’s going to take awhile to seethe effects of these activities .“Stratford’ s audience has historically been tradition-ally white, no matter how much work we’ve done in the last year to try to disrupt that ,” said Smith.
“I’m not sure that audiences of colour, global majority audiences trust the festi-val is making these moves just yet. They may not trust the effectiveness of what’s being implemented ,” said Smith .“As a Black artist, as a Black person growing up in the world, I know that I’ve been slurred in public to my face… I think it’s important to understand how that land sin the context of a theatrical piece, butit’s important to have a conversation around it as well .”
Williams feels that including the N-word on stage has the potential to raise awareness among white audiences of Black people’ s experience .“I have never had the opportunity to turn away from that word. If you area white member of the audience… I want you to some way recognize that for the two seconds that you hear it, and feel the hurt Ia san African-American have experienced it for generations ,” he said.
Akin, too, referred to his personal ex-perience when talking about the N-word .“I came to this country in 1954 and I cannot count the times that Ia san impotent child was referred toby that and a whole slew of other epithets ,” he said.
Akin likens these current discussions of the N-word to “listening to a toddler say their first words… basically you’ re having discussion sat junior kindergar-ten level when it comes to discussing race with white people .” To further make his points, Akin brought up his recent, award-winning production of Antoinette Nwandu’s “Pass Over” for Obsidian Theatre, in which the N-word is spoken more than 200 times.
There was no public questioning of the N-word in “Pass Over ,” Akin said, be-cause it was produced in late 2019. “It’s only because we saw George Floyd get murdered on You Tube that this is even more than momentary fascination for other people ,” said Akin.
“Nothing has changed, all that has actually happened is a momentary veil-lifting for white people and now the veil is mostly back down again… I just find it ab it precious, a bit pearl-c lu tc hy, that it is engendering so much conversation predominantly among white people who are what? Bleeding out over an insult to another group of people that they don’t give a f-k about, when it comes down to the short strokes .”
“I way want recognize you to some that for the two seconds that you hear it, and feel the hurt I as an African-American have experienced it for generations.” DATHAN B. WILLIAMS BLACK AMERICAN THEATRE ARTIST