Thomas-Sox-WorldSeries wrote:
good dolphin wrote:
I went to Goodman's, A Christmas Carol yesterday.
someone's interpretation of the classic included Fezziwig being a woman and married to a woman.
So edgy, douches.
Race alone is a minefield of a topic, and I think that is what started the PC craze in the 80s.
But when they start having women (as women) play male characters--even in theater--things are a little fucked up. There's some play now where a pregnant woman is playing Thomas Jefferson. I understand that they are making a point when it's an all-cast replacement, but when it's just a character or two, it seems like it's asking the audience to also play a role or to ignore something that is hard to ignore. I saw
Amadeus with a Black Salieri and he was great. But the rest of the cast was passably European-looking, so it really wasn't distracting, even though Salieri is the main character. Gender seems different, though.
Maybe the real issue is that we are tacitly asked to suppress the urge to say, "Wait, what the hell . . ." We should leave
that story back in the twentieth century where it belongs.
I think the solution is to write your own play or update an old classic to a new time and place. Or just stage your all-dyke production of
North Dallas Forty. But don't do something so odd that it takes away from the story and is not much more than a cheap stunt. If you can't suspend your disbelief--and complain about it--then it's not art; it's indoctrination.
At the very least, have some fun with it and have a disturbing crossover, like if
The Dukes of Hazzard crash-landed on the set of one of those Viking shows. Or maybe the
Cosby Mysteries gets crosses over with that show my wife watches about the Danes. That chick is so damn cute.
I feel that, when altering the author, you do so with a point, otherwise it is masturbatory. A Mrs. Fezziwig in place of Mr. presumably would have a slightly different perspective or manner. So if you are going to create such a character on your own, you damn well better provide me an altered character. Would a Mrs. Fezziwig hire only young men like Ebenezer as her assistants? Would she be more watchful of their machinations? Would her Christmas party look different?
OK madame director, you wanted to be bold, but all you chose was superficiality, like putting stormtroopers in off white armor rather than white.
I can appreciate when people stage something like Shakespeare in some anachronistic time, place, or dress and then interpret the story through that lens. This director fell far short, actually taking a safe route when she thought she was being outrageous.
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Sorry man. Hope things get better!