Friday, January 16, 2015

Diversity in entertainment: it's worth the mess

Today many circles are atwitter with disappointment about yesterday's Oscar nominations, which were significantly lacking in diversity (particularly in the acting categories).  I've also seen frustration expressed about Eddie Redmayne's nomination for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking, which many (and not just people with disabilities) think perpetuates the stale-and-too-frequent Hollywood trope of "play the disabled person and you'll get an Academy Award."

I thought I'd use my first blog post of 2015 to weigh in with a few thoughts.  But first, some context on where I'm coming from.

As some may know, I have just started a yearlong contract as a professional actor with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). Some may hear "festival" and assume OSF is a small outdoor community theatre that nobly puts on a couple of Shakespeare plays during the warm summer months for picnicking, wine-drinking older folk.  While the wine-drinking may be accurate, the reality is that OSF is a year-round theatre that produces 11 plays and musicals each season, and is one of the most prominent and well-regarded repertory theaters in the country. It's also one of the few theaters that still hires a full company of actors for the entire season, each of whom works on multiple plays or musicals beside other artists who are practicing at the top of their craft (playwrights, designers, directors, stage managers, and others).  The plays that premiere here in Ashland, OR often continue on to top regional theatres, or even Broadway (such as the play that won the Tony this year, ALL THE WAY.)  Essentially, OSF is Broadway or West End calibre, but instead of NY pizza or fish and chips down the street, you have an organic food co-op with countless natural greybeards that rival Gandalf the Wizard.

For a theatre actor - or any actor - an OSF contract is a big deal, and a dream.

And for me - an actor who uses a wheelchair full-time after being paralyzed in a car accident nearly 13 years ago - it's an even bigger deal, and bigger dream.  After all, I am the first wheeling full-season repertory actor the company has ever had. EVER. In hundreds of actors who have graced the stages since the company was founded in 1935.  Eighty years.

I did learn that one other wheelchair-using actor, Kenneth Littleton Crow, played Snout in the 1993 summertime production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.  And Howie Seago, a deaf actor, has worked at OSF in multiple seasons.  Still, That makes 3 of us with different abilities, and only 2 who have been cast in the classical "rep actor" style where an actor is in more than 1 show during the season.  This is important - especially for actors who are "different" - because it means that the company is committing to you as a versatile artist who can handle the rigor of playing multiple roles that are often contrasting in nature...not just bringing you in for one show where you fit enough.

Fitting enough: that is often what we "different" actors have to do to get the role.  You could call it the "Othello conundrum," similar to where black male actors are not called to do Shakespeare until a theatre decides to do OTHELLO and needs a black actor. (Even Othello used to be played by white actors until people realized that, oh, wait, there are amazing black actors out there who can more aptly play the role.  And blackface is shitty and racist.)

OSF doesn't just cast based on where people historically fit into theatre.  It's ubiquitously apparent on stages up here, from PERICLES to GUYS AND DOLLS.  The company's mission is to reflect the diversity of the world around us in the plays it produces onstage.   (Gee, I would say that makes a lot of sense.)  There are colors and genders and creeds and sexualities and ethnicities galore, playing all sorts of roles that weren't necessarily intended by Shakespeare or other playwrights to be embodied by such identities.  And, considering that the World Bank's estimate of PWDs around the world is about 1 billion people - or 15% of the world's population - I'd say OSF has made the right decision in adding actors with different abilities to the mix.

Now, this isn't to say that it's easy.

When I first talked with Bill Rauch, OSF's Artistic Director, about their decision to hire me, we agreed that there might be some bits of mess involved.  People might say the wrong thing.  Not know how to help.  Be less skilled in directing or designing for a wheeling actor...a foreign experience for many, even the pinnacle artists who work at OSF.  But we both agreed that MESS is an unavoidable - and necessary - part of change.  Experiencing firsthand triumphs and mistakes is the only way to learn and progress.

And within week 1, we've had our first bit of mess.

It involves understudying.  Aside from being cast in multiple shows (usually 2-3 at a time), OSF actors are given understudy assignments.  You learn another role in case the primary actor cannot go on.  I was given an understudy assignment for a couple of roles in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.  However, as Bill (who happens to be directing A&C) began delving into the show and its design logistics, it became clear that the roles I was assigned would have to be on multiple levels of the stage that are not accessible to wheelchairs.

He was devastated.  And as much as he tried to find a workable solution, it became clear that the amount of energy and effort it would take to accommodate for the slight (emphasize slight) possibility that I would ever have to take the stage simply wasn't common sensical, for the show or for me.  And I agree; so I will be sticking with my 2 primary roles this season, and most likely not understudying.

In the future, this may require a system change in how the understudy assignments work.  Perhaps I won't be assigned my understudies until after the shows begin to take shape, so they know which shows will work for wheels.  Or, shows will be designed with a greater focus on universal accessibility.  Or, maybe a time will come when there are multiple wheeling actors in the company who can understudy each other.

Regardless, in my mind, this "mess" equates to 1 step back, compared to the 99 forward steps OSF has taken in hiring me.  After all, the roles in which I was cast for the season were NOT conceived for a wheeling actor.  Don John in Shakespeare's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING is usually played by a man, and the text has no reference toward any physical difference.  The Mysterious Woman in Stan Lai's SECRET LOVE IN PEACH BLOSSOM LAND also has no indication of physical difference.  But in both cases, the casting team and directors opened their minds to what COULD BE POSSIBLE.  In doing so, they realized that it makes perfect sense for both of these roles to be played by...moi.

Some people say that everything in the arts - theatre, music, visual art, dancing - is just a re-creation or re-envisioning of something that's already been done at some point, somewhere in the annals of human history.  I understand this argument, but I also disagree.  I can say with a good deal of certainty that what OSF is doing with me this year in these plays has never been done.  (If anyone can find evidence to the contrary, I am all ears.)

Which brings me back to the Oscar nominations, and what I personally find disheartening about them.  It's not that white able men (or women, depending on the category) shouldn't be nominated; people who distill the issue down to this absurd conclusion are just being bombastic and ridiculous. I thought some performances by the nominated actors were exquisite.  In particular, I thought BIRDMAN was inventive and refreshing, and Michael Keaton was extraordinary. (Important note here: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu who conceived and directed BIRDMAN is Mexican.)  And I have not seen it, but I imagine that Eddie Redmayne pulls off an impressive performance in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.  Plus, regardless of him, I was happy to see that a movie was made about Stephen Hawking, one of the most fascinating and important PWDs in history (who is unfortunately also the frequent butt of many discriminatory disabled jokes, even though he could mentally smackdown just about any bloke on this planet...talk about Professor Xavier!).

The problem is that Hollywood, Broadway, and much of our popular entertainment are STUCK: in ignorance and cowardice.

I was going to say that they exemplify madness, as defined by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra in DON QUIXOTE: "...maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"  But this is being too generous; they don't even deserve the designation of madness, because they aren't even fully portraying LIFE AS IT IS.

Those of us who pay attention out there in the "real" world - and the real America - SEE how it is.

It's a world where stories like those told in the Oscar-nominated films - of valiant soldiers, heroic deeds, despicable actions, tragic diagnoses, fantasy worlds, or the mundane details of life - are not EXCLUSIVELY lived by white people.  Or men.  Or people who are all "normal" physical specimens without some physical difference that indicates how they've been marked or injured by life.  It's a world where people of all kinds, colors, languages, and physicalities fill different roles: soldiers, teachers, parents, CEOs, McDonald's workers, doctors, or the dude next to you on the bus.

To not acknowledge and reflect this reality is ignorance.
To not actively strike out to start changing the human make-up of popular American storytelling is cowardice.

And so I understand the frustration with the Oscar nominations.  While there have been successes in recent years with Oscar diversity, there's not a stopping point.  The world doesn't stop becoming more diverse, so why do we think that entertainment can "take a break from diversity" for a year, as though we're just trying to fill a quota before we go back to tunnel vision?

The pathways forward are there, and to some of us, painfully obvious and doable.

Yes, there might be some mess as TV shows have to arrange for an accessible dressing room for a wheeling actor (something I've experienced).  But shouldn't they have one anyway, especially because it can work for ANY actor coming on set?  Doesn't it make sense?

Yes, there might be some extra cost to retrofit actor housing for a deaf actor who needs a light to flash when the doorbell rings.  But with production budgets that often factor in the millions (some of which goes to frivolous expenditures anyway), will a couple hundred or thousand really be that big of a deal?  Particularly if you're getting an exquisite performer that will enhance the company and its artistry?  (Btw, in my own situation at OSF, they had to renovate an apartment to make it wheelchair accessible, but I've heard that it was in need of a renovation anyway...I just happened to be a good excuse. :-)  And aside from a portable ramp and maybe one or two pushbutton doors - all of which benefit every employee and patron who come to OSF - the accommodations needed have been minimal.)

If an opportunity exists to move forward into uncharted and exciting territory, why hesitate, especially if it makes perfect sense?  Does it not make sense that Hamlet, a war vet, could have some sort of permanent war injury and be played by an actor with an amputation or wheelchair?  Does it not make sense that Idris Elba, a magnificently classy and talented black actor, would play the next James Bond? (Especially because, frankly, you want me to believe that a white boy spy will be able to infiltrate a terrorist cell in Yemen, or the Boko Haram outfit in Nigeria, or other contemporary spy-worthy locations?  Good luck white boy 007.)

Diversity does make sense.  And it's reality.  And even for those who focus on the profit bottom line, it's risky and thrilling.

For those of you who think the reason is that the actors don't exist, they do.  I know hoardes of them.  Actors who are Nigerian, Puerto Rican, have cerebral palsy, amputations, are Chinese, have spinal cord injuries, are deaf...you just don't know they exist because, in most cases, they haven't been given a widespread opportunity to share their stuff.  And, in many cases, even when the casting team and directors and writers know about someone "different," and in their heart-of-hearts genuinely WANT to make a more diverse choice, they don't.

Why?  "We're not ready."  "It's too expensive."  "Maybe next time."
Translation?  "We're a bunch of wussy-ass cowards who don't actually know enough to write diverse stories, and we're afraid to put our own necks on the line for the integrity of art and entertainment." (I'm really good at translating.)

Thankfully, my new colleagues at OSF are not wussies.  They realize the risk and reward of creativity, change, and diversity.

And when it comes to Oscar-worthy films or Tony-worthy plays, I'd rather see and hear about the unique artistic solutions invented to allow my actor friends with cerebral palsy or paralysis to play Stephen Hawking.  What greenscreening would they use?  What cool wheelchair contraptions would they make?  What camera angles and makeup would be necessary to give the appearance of withered legs when someone actually HAS withered legs?

And what messy situations came up on set or backstage?!?!  Because those are always exciting.