Archive for September 2016

Still Chilled

And now my mother was not there. So what did that mean? Had she and our relationship just faded out of sight, as Cole Porter so aptly phrases it? Up until that very point, I would have answered that the relationship was still there, and that, even though I could no longer see her, we were still connected. That, in fact, our relationship would be fully restored one day in an afterlife. But I could not feel it. Not this time; I’d felt it somehow when I lost my father and when I lost my stepfather. With Mother there was no sense of assurance, none of continuity. And I was feeling exactly as the lover in Porter’s song dreaded to feel: left “in the chill still of the night.”

Is Unconventional Obligatory? Freedom of Expression vs. Equal Protection Before the Footlights

The coming fight is over one particular form of unconventional casting, placing white actors in non-white roles. Acceptance of non-white actors in white roles is fairly widespread. However, there is a resistance when the traffic runs the other way. It is argued that this is “appropriation” of the ability of oppressed and silenced minorities to tell their own stories and contravention of the wishes of authors, and that it unfairly curtails the already limited career opportunities of minority performers. I know of no test cases yet, but it looks likely some disappointed white actor will bring one sometime soon. And when that actor’s suit is brought, I predict the right of theatrical employers to discriminate will be upheld.