My Fair Lady - London Coliseum / UK & Ireland Tour

[theatreian]

I made the point about age in this thread that Vanessa Redgrave appears too old to be playing Mrs Higgins, but apparently anyone can play any role so long as they can sing it. There is a difference between historical accuracy and believability.

[couldileaveyou]

Feb 27, 2022 21:52:09 GMT wardrobemistress76 said:

I know there have been black performers play Javert! But it’s not accurate. A black person would never have been in that position of power.

Can someone just tell me why it’s different to a white person playing a black role?! I am not narrow-minded. It was my husband - who is black - who thinks this casting is ridiculous. He actually finds it deeply embarrassing.

Just for reference Thomas-Alexandre Dumas – Alexandre Dumas père's père – was half black and had been a very prominent general in late 18th century France 

[jaggy]

There's a difference when you hire actors for work about a marginalised group who do not belong to that group i.e. hiring white actors for A Raisin in the Sun would be horrifically offensive. But My Fair Lady/ Pygmalion is a musical/ play about the toxic class system in the UK. Yes, one can choose to hire a BIPOC Eliza to highlight how interconnected race and class is or hire a BIPOC Eliza and it just be an amazing opportunity for an actor especially if they're BIPOC. Whatever the choice the director chooses is perfectly acceptable as the material allows it. There is absolutely no reason Eliza can't be black.
 

[Deleted]

Feb 27, 2022 21:52:09 GMT wardrobemistress76 said:

I know there have been black performers play Javert! But it’s not accurate. A black person would never have been in that position of power.

Can someone just tell me why it’s different to a white person playing a black role?! I am not narrow-minded. It was my husband - who is black - who thinks this casting is ridiculous. He actually finds it deeply embarrassing.

And where is it written that Eliza and Alfred Doolittle should only be played by Caucasian actors?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that Shaw never talks about the colour of their skin. However, he does say that ‘she needs the services of a dentist.’ Does that mean that Eliza should only be played by actors who don’t have a Hollywood smile?

[Jon]

Feb 27, 2022 22:01:54 GMT theatreian said:

I made the point about age in this thread that Vanessa Redgrave appears too old to be playing Mrs Higgins, but apparently anyone can play any role so long as they can sing it. There is a difference between historical accuracy and believability.

TBH Mrs Higgins is always an older actor but usually Professor Higgins is played by someone a bit older than 40 so the age gap isn't too obvious. 

[mattnyc]

And Rose should be 30 something to early 40s but in every production of “Gypsy”, she’s played someone much older. Just how these things have evolved.

[couldileaveyou]

Feb 27, 2022 22:03:26 GMT couldileaveyou said:

Feb 27, 2022 21:52:09 GMT wardrobemistress76 said:

I know there have been black performers play Javert! But it’s not accurate. A black person would never have been in that position of power.

Can someone just tell me why it’s different to a white person playing a black role?! I am not narrow-minded. It was my husband - who is black - who thinks this casting is ridiculous. He actually finds it deeply embarrassing.

Just for reference Thomas-Alexandre Dumas – Alexandre Dumas père's père – was half black and had been a very prominent general in late 18th century France 

Also, police inspectors at the time were paid very poorly: most of them got by because they accepted generous bribes – whick makes Javert's integrity even more impressive. So 1) it wasn't a position of great power and 2) there were high ranking black people in the army even before Les Miz is set

[juicy_but_terribly_drab]

There were definitely black people in Edwardian England from all walks of life (in London and other major cities especially) so, although the population of black people in England would have been much smaller at the time and yes a black Eliza wouldn't be very likely, it's certainly not an impossibility (and as far as I know there's nothing in the show to indicate that Eliza is definitively white) - and considering the inherent heightened nature of the story, not to mention it literally being a musical, I don't know how much the show is exactly aiming for realism here. Also, I think there's a lot of interesting layers added to the story with a black Eliza - obviously at a basic level racism now comes into play on top of the classism motivating Higgins's actions, but I can also see potentially rich parallels between Higgins's attitude towards Eliza and that of Britain itself colonising countries across the world, excusing their actions as benevolently pullling these people out of so-called savagery.

I do see the other side though, that we should stop centering stories written by white creators, and simply slotting non-white people into these roles that weren't written with that in mind because it upholds the monopoly white voices have had in London theatre for centuries when that isn't reflective of the people living here anymore. Instead more attention should be given to works written by and about non-white people so that there's parity in representation both on stage and behind the scenes. Then it wouldn't be such a big deal that there's some all/majority white casts on stage because there'd equally be works featuring e.g. all/majority black casts as well as other works with more diverse casts etc. The tricky thing is there are also people against colourblind casting simply because they're racist - or maybe since that's such a charged word for some people I'll be generous and say maybe they hold unconscious racial biases (and honestly in my experience these make up the majority of people who hold this position) - so I understand people being defensive about the issue. Now this kind of change obviously hasn't been implemented, so what do you do in the meantime because without colourblind casting non-white actors won't get the kinds of opportunities their white counterparts will if they aren't able to play these kinds of leading roles? But if you do continue with this kind of colourblind casting will there ever be any progress towards a more diverse group of creative voices being given major opportunities, or will the status quo remain unchanged? I honestly don't know where I stand on the issue because like I said I think Amara will be great in the role and I think having a black Eliza could actually enhance the story, but I also don't think detractors of colourblind casting should be dismissed out of hand as long as they're engaging in good faith, it's just sometimes hard to tell whether they are.

[Deleted]

This is how Shaw describes Eliza and Alfred:

She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the LADY’s right. She is not at all a romantic figure. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist.

Pygmalion (11)

ALFRED DOOLITTLE is an elderly but vigorous dustman, clad in the costume of his profession, including a hat with a back brim covering his neck and shoulders. He has well marked and rather interesting features, and seems equally free from fear and conscience. He has a remarkably expressive voice, the result of a habit of giving vent to his feelings without reserve. His present pose is that of wounded honor and stern resolution.

Pygmalion (49)

Copied from the New Mermaids edition of Pygmalion.

I believe that having an Eliza played by an actor who’s not Caucasian can make the musical even better and more interesting as some people have already said here.

By the way, in 2018, Eric Tucker directed a production of Pygmalion in which both Eliza and Alfred were played by South Asian actors (Vaishnavi Sharma and Rajesh Bose) who spoke with a broad Indian accent instead of a Cockney one; and according to the reviews, the production was abso-bloomin’-lutely amazing:

link

[wardrobemistress76]

Thank you for the replies and comments.

I think it’s very important to say when you are wrong, and also to apologise.

So. I was wrong. Reading your comments has made me realise a few things.

I would also like to apologise for any offence caused.

Many of you are correct when you say that this diverse casting could make the musical better in many ways.

I will go, and can’t wait to be proved wrong.

[hitmewithurbethshot]

Javert was part Romani in the original book of Les Miserables, so if anything him being played by white actors is inaccurate

[Deleted]

Why do people care about the race.   Inspector Javert could be black . There were and are lots of Black People in Paris due to colonies . PS the play is fictional. Who cares if the person is black?  If Disney I know its fiction can have black people play Belle why are we so over the top of this

[alece10]

Sharif Afifi is Freddie Eynesford-Hill

[FairyGodmother]

Feb 27, 2022 22:04:09 GMT jaggy said:

Yes, one can choose to hire a BIPOC Eliza to highlight how interconnected race and class is or hire a BIPOC Eliza and it just be an amazing opportunity for an actor especially if they're BIPOC. Whatever the choice the director chooses is perfectly acceptable as the material allows it. There is absolutely no reason Eliza can't be black.
 

While I agree with your point, I'm not sure using BIPOC is very helpful — practically every white actor in the UK will class as indigenous.

I'm very tempted by this I must say. The orchestra size makes me want to see it even more.

[theplaymirrorslife]

They're advertising jobs for wigs, wardrobe and SM roles at the moment - and it's interesting to see 'for limited London season followed by multi city tour'. So it's obvs following the previous 'King & I' production pattern after the Coli....!

[mrbarnaby]

It’s the same producers as King and I and Anything Goes so will follow that model- limited London run- uk Tour- Cinema broadcast- tour again…

[theatrenewbie]

Mar 2, 2022 19:34:56 GMT mrbarnaby said:

It’s the same producers as King and I and Anything Goes so will follow that model- limited London run- uk Tour- Cinema broadcast- tour again…

Your saying this west end run is being filmed? For broadcast cinema or tv? Like anything goes and king and I etc??

Is this confirmed

[Sam]

The Mayflower in Southampton has just announced dates 12 - 19 January 2023

[theatrenewbie]

The tour will open in Bradford on 9 September 2022 before going on to visit Dublin (6 to 30 October), Cardiff (8 to 26 November) and Southampton (12 to 29 January), with more cities to be announced in due course. Performances in the West End will begin on 9 May.

[interval99]

Good to know the tour and even possible cinema showing now, certainly will save a lot of people the high cost of a London trip and the west end tickets prices

[digne]

Feb 28, 2022 0:10:28 GMT hitmewithurbethshot said:

Javert was part Romani in the original book of Les Miserables, so if anything him being played by white actors is inaccurate

That's actually not correct. The first American translation mistranslated a description of him as "gypsy race" when the word Hugo actually used was "race de bohèmes" in the sense of homeless/wandering/vagabond - other translations more correctly translate this description of him as having "a consuming hatred for the vagabond order to which he himself belonged" - i.e. he hates the criminal underclass he had been born into. If you're interested in the way Hugo describes his Romani characters, Notre Dame de Paris is worth a read though!

Likewise, people always seem to labour under the misapprehension that Javert's position as a policeman is something that would be seen as good/worthy of respect/is a position of power, when that is very much not the French view at the time. In the eye of the public, being a policeman is the same as being a criminal - it's a shameful occupation. Hugo himself tells us that since Javert was born into that criminal underclass, he knew that he would always be outside of society with only two paths open to him, becoming a criminal or joining the police: "He observed that society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,—those who attack it and those who guard it."

You can also see this in Balzac's works of the same time, for example in this scene where a criminal is contemplating the murder of a policeman: "Peyrade and Carlos were now face to face in the coach. Carlos had a stiletto under his hand. The coach-driver was a man he could trust, quite capable of allowing Carlos to get out without seeing him, or being surprised, on arriving at his journey's end, to find a dead body in his cab. No inquiries are ever made about a spy. The law almost always leaves such murders unpunished, it is so difficult to know the rights of the case."

A thug murdering a policeman? The law shrugs and says, ah well, it's just a policeman, who knows what he was up to.

It is perhaps not quite the same social death Valjean experienced as a convict, but you can see it e.g. in the scene when Javert refuses to shake Madeleine's hand because a respectable bourgeois man like the mayor cannot shake the hand of a police spy like Javert.

That said, there would be nothing historically inaccurate about a Black Javert in 19th century France. For more information, I really recommend "The Black Count" by Tom Reiss:

Though the so-called Directory government that ran France in the mid- to late 1790s is usually derided as a low point in the Revolution—a time of cronyism and corruption—it is rarely credited with an amazing, quiet accomplishment: this period saw the French movement for racial equality persist not only in the colonies but in Paris itself. One emblematic example was the election and acceptance of black and mixed-race legislators in the Council of Five Hundred. Belley and Mills were the first, but at least ten more would hold political office in the 1790s, including the mixed-race men Jean Littée, Joseph and Jean-Louis Boisson, Louis-François Boisrond, Jean-Baptiste Deville, Jean-François Petitniaud, Pierre Thomany, Jacques Tonnelier, and the doyen of eighteenth-century black activism, Julien Raimond. Former slaves Etienne Mentor and Jean-Louis d’Annecy also served as representatives. Annecy held the position of secretary in the Directory’s Council of Elders.

Perhaps one of the most touching of the forgotten stories from this period was how revolutionary France, under the outwardly soulless Directory, instituted the world’s first color-blind elite secondary school. It gave the sons of former slaves—alongside the sons of privileged mixed-race and white abolitionists—one of the world’s finest educations at a time when the English-speaking world still considered it a crime for black children to learn to read.

It began in the mid-1790s, when, at the invitation of prominent members of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, revolutionaries “of color” in the French colonies began sending their children to school in Paris. The government responded by creating an elite boarding school, the National Colonial Institute, which would be the world’s first experiment in integrated secondary education. Among its founders were leading civil rights activists like Julien Raimond, the Abbé Grégoire, and Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, the man who had first ordered abolition in Saint-Domingue.

If it's historical accuracy that's important, we'd really have to get rid of the character of Javert alltogether. The mishmash of rights and duties Hugo gave him is unfortunately not correct for the position of an inspector at the time; some of them really belong to the position of commissaire - a position Javert with his criminal background would never reach.

Likewise, the brands the musical gave the convicts are also historically inaccurate. By the time Valjean was imprisoned, branding was already abolished. Furthermore, the convicts would not have been rowing galleys like they do in the musical prologue. Valjean was called a "galley slave," but the galleys convicts had been rowing in former times had been abandoned as war ships in 1748. Instead these old galleys are anchored in the port of Toulon and the convicts merely sleep in them at night.

Edit: For some reason I thought this was the Les Mis thread; I wouldn't have gone on for so long otherwise.

Anyway, I saw this production of My Fair Lady on Broadway and it was one of my favourite shows of the year; I'm thrilled to see it again. Additionally, Amara has been one of my favourite Cosettes I've ever seen, and I've seen a few - I've made sure to see every other show she's been in since then, so I'm incredibly excited for this.

[theplaymirrorslife]

Hope they'll be able to budget in the 35 piece orchestra on tour. The venues announced so far certainly have the pit size capability....

[sph]

Something I've lost track of so forgive me: Is this going to be a full staging with full-size sets etc? Like the New York production?

[Being Alive]

It'll be the US Touring version of the Lincoln Centre production - smaller house etc. But its a full production

[inthenose]

Mar 3, 2022 12:36:48 GMT digne said:

Feb 28, 2022 0:10:28 GMT hitmewithurbethshot said:

Javert was part Romani in the original book of Les Miserables, so if anything him being played by white actors is inaccurate

That's actually not correct. The first American translation mistranslated a description of him as "gypsy race" when the word Hugo actually used was "race de bohèmes" in the sense of homeless/wandering/vagabond - other translations more correctly translate this description of him as having "a consuming hatred for the vagabond order to which he himself belonged" - i.e. he hates the criminal underclass he had been born into. If you're interested in the way Hugo describes his Romani characters, Notre Dame de Paris is worth a read though!

Likewise, people always seem to labour under the misapprehension that Javert's position as a policeman is something that would be seen as good/worthy of respect/is a position of power, when that is very much not the French view at the time. In the eye of the public, being a policeman is the same as being a criminal - it's a shameful occupation. Hugo himself tells us that since Javert was born into that criminal underclass, he knew that he would always be outside of society with only two paths open to him, becoming a criminal or joining the police: "He observed that society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,—those who attack it and those who guard it."

You can also see this in Balzac's works of the same time, for example in this scene where a criminal is contemplating the murder of a policeman: "Peyrade and Carlos were now face to face in the coach. Carlos had a stiletto under his hand. The coach-driver was a man he could trust, quite capable of allowing Carlos to get out without seeing him, or being surprised, on arriving at his journey's end, to find a dead body in his cab. No inquiries are ever made about a spy. The law almost always leaves such murders unpunished, it is so difficult to know the rights of the case."

A thug murdering a policeman? The law shrugs and says, ah well, it's just a policeman, who knows what he was up to.

It is perhaps not quite the same social death Valjean experienced as a convict, but you can see it e.g. in the scene when Javert refuses to shake Madeleine's hand because a respectable bourgeois man like the mayor cannot shake the hand of a police spy like Javert.

That said, there would be nothing historically inaccurate about a Black Javert in 19th century France. For more information, I really recommend "The Black Count" by Tom Reiss:

Though the so-called Directory government that ran France in the mid- to late 1790s is usually derided as a low point in the Revolution—a time of cronyism and corruption—it is rarely credited with an amazing, quiet accomplishment: this period saw the French movement for racial equality persist not only in the colonies but in Paris itself. One emblematic example was the election and acceptance of black and mixed-race legislators in the Council of Five Hundred. Belley and Mills were the first, but at least ten more would hold political office in the 1790s, including the mixed-race men Jean Littée, Joseph and Jean-Louis Boisson, Louis-François Boisrond, Jean-Baptiste Deville, Jean-François Petitniaud, Pierre Thomany, Jacques Tonnelier, and the doyen of eighteenth-century black activism, Julien Raimond. Former slaves Etienne Mentor and Jean-Louis d’Annecy also served as representatives. Annecy held the position of secretary in the Directory’s Council of Elders.

Perhaps one of the most touching of the forgotten stories from this period was how revolutionary France, under the outwardly soulless Directory, instituted the world’s first color-blind elite secondary school. It gave the sons of former slaves—alongside the sons of privileged mixed-race and white abolitionists—one of the world’s finest educations at a time when the English-speaking world still considered it a crime for black children to learn to read.

It began in the mid-1790s, when, at the invitation of prominent members of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, revolutionaries “of color” in the French colonies began sending their children to school in Paris. The government responded by creating an elite boarding school, the National Colonial Institute, which would be the world’s first experiment in integrated secondary education. Among its founders were leading civil rights activists like Julien Raimond, the Abbé Grégoire, and Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, the man who had first ordered abolition in Saint-Domingue.

If it's historical accuracy that's important, we'd really have to get rid of the character of Javert alltogether. The mishmash of rights and duties Hugo gave him is unfortunately not correct for the position of an inspector at the time; some of them really belong to the position of commissaire - a position Javert with his criminal background would never reach.

Likewise, the brands the musical gave the convicts are also historically inaccurate. By the time Valjean was imprisoned, branding was already abolished. Furthermore, the convicts would not have been rowing galleys like they do in the musical prologue. Valjean was called a "galley slave," but the galleys convicts had been rowing in former times had been abandoned as war ships in 1748. Instead these old galleys are anchored in the port of Toulon and the convicts merely sleep in them at night.

Edit: For some reason I thought this was the Les Mis thread; I wouldn't have gone on for so long otherwise.

Anyway, I saw this production of My Fair Lady on Broadway and it was one of my favourite shows of the year; I'm thrilled to see it again. Additionally, Amara has been one of my favourite Cosettes I've ever seen, and I've seen a few - I've made sure to see every other show she's been in since then, so I'm incredibly excited for this.

Fascinating post. Thank you very much