FROM the unpublished writings of the late Lawrence Auster:
Before multiculturalism, [non-traditional theater] casting had been practiced in a modest and unobtrusive way for decades. The first Shakespeare play I ever saw on stage was a production of Macbeth at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Elizabeth, New Jersey, around 1960. Playing the part of Macduff was a Negro actor with a wonderful deep voice, whose thrilling delivery of the play’s climactic speech,
Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still has served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
untimely RIPPED
made a great impression on me. The actor’s race, while certainly introducing an exotic element into the play, was not disruptive in the slightest. I have had the same experience at other performances of classic stage plays by Shakespeare, Shaw and Wilde that have featured black actors playing the parts of Englishmen.
[However,] in matters of cultural identity, numbers are of key importance. Just as a small number of minorities can fit into a society without altering its basic identity, one or two nonwhite actors can fit into a classic Western play without changing the play’s essential character and spirit. (more…)