Life copying Art: performance as a means of ...

South African Theatre Journal

ISSN: 1013-7548 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rthj20

Life copying Art: performance as a means of inverting social and racial stereotypes Brian Pearce To cite this article: Brian Pearce (2001) Life copying Art: performance as a means of inverting social and racial stereotypes, South African Theatre Journal, 15:1, 161-168, DOI: 10.1080/10137548.2001.9687730 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10137548.2001.9687730

Published online: 09 Aug 2011.

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Date: 17 October 2016, At: 01:59

Pearce – Life copying art

Life copying Art: performance as a means of inverting social and racial stereotypes Brian Pearce Technikon Natal As a lecturer in the Department of Drama Studies at Technikon Natal, I have undertaken a number of experimental productions of European plays.1 In each production, I have explored the possibilities of multi-racial casting in order to make the plays accessible within a contemporary South African social and political context. There are a number of possible ways in which one may approach the problem of multi-racial casting, such as casting in a way which conforms to stereotypical views, or casting in a way which provocatively undermines stereotypes, or even casting in a way which deliberately ignores racial stereotypes. I hope that the discussion that follows may be of value to other directors working within a similar context.

My first experiment in multi-racial casting was in 1994, in a production of Ibsen's Ghosts at the Courtyard Theatre, Technikon Natal. Pastor Manders and Engstrand were played by black student actors (one from a Xhosa, the other from a Zulu cultural background), while Mrs Alving, Oswald and Regina were played by white actors. The character of Manders was very much modelled on the idea of a black South African preacher. I told the actor to think of Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a contemporary example. Meanwhile the disreputable Engstrand appeared as if he had just left the local “shebeen”. The "white" Regina had a "black" father, although she later discovers that her real father is the late Captain Alving and that Oswald is her brother. Oswald is, of course, also her lover and it was this aspect of the play – an incestuous relationship – along with the fact that Oswald is dying of syphilis, as had his father before him, that shocked the play’s original audiences. Syphilis had a modern parallel in the HIV/AIDS virus, which at that time in South Africa was not being widely publicised or discussed, hence the Alving family “secret” could be seen to be similar to a modern situation in which an AIDS victim might be regarded. The production was also innovative in terms of the way in which a black pastor could adopt a domineering position in relation to an independently-minded white "colonial" woman. In terms of existing social categories in South Africa, such an interpretation was bound to challenge preconceptions, given the prevailing dominance of white colonial culture. The setting of the play was in the nineteenth century and I did not attempt to update it, hence the interpretation presented a deliberately distorted view of relationships between races in the 1880s.

My next experiment, in 1995, was a production of Moliere's Tartuffe. In this production, Tartuffe was played by a black actor and again the idea of a contemporary black preacher was stressed.

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The casting was adventurous with Orgon played by a black actor, and his wife, son and daughter played by white actors. Mariane, Orgon's daughter was in love with Valere, played by a black actor. The effect was to create a mythical world in which racial stereotypes were transcended. The play was costumed in modern dress and given a contemporary setting. The production was well received by the audience and I felt encouraged to adopt bold casting methods in future.

My next production, in 1996, of Shaw's Arms and the Man, although successful as a performance, worked less well as a multi-racial casting of a European play. At that time in our department, there were no lead actors among black students, capable of playing the role of Bluntschli. Unfortunately, in this production, owing to circumstances, black students took minor roles or servants roles, a situation which tends to reinforce rather than invert racial stereotypes in this country. However, in view of the fact that Louka was played by a black actress, Sergius's love affair with her and choice of her as a partner, took on a challenging note for audiences, especially given the period setting.

My next production, in 1997, was of Anouilh's Antigone, and in this production I was more adventurous thanks to two very fine young black actors who took the roles of Creon and Antigone. Creon, played by Sipho Mzobe, was very much an African dictator, although at times he took on a diplomatic, statesmanly manner reminiscent of former President Nelson Mandela. Creon had a white son, Haemon, while Antigone had a white sister, Ismene, and a white lover. Again I felt that we were challenging racial stereotypes. My students at the time asked me if I didn't think that I was stretching credibility too far, that I was being "un-realistic" in casting a white man as the son of a black dictator. "We accept that a white man can fall in love with a black woman, or that a black woman can have a white sister, but we have never heard of a black man having a white son!"

My reply to this was simplistic but effective: "Could there not be a society somewhere in the future in which a black man does have a white son? Could we not perhaps be influencing such a new society in which such relationships do occur?" I found myself quoting Oscar Wilde: "Life imitates art." I suddenly realised how provocative these words are in terms of the way in which art may be used to change people's perceptions and to influence society. In this sense, Wilde was a forerunner of Brecht.

In directing the play, I felt that it was important to concentrate on developing the relationship between Creon and Haemon, creating a feeling of empathy between them. We needed to believe that the two characters loved each other as father and son, and that Haemon's anger towards his father came out of a deep love and respect, which was shattered by Antigone's choice and her 162


death sentence, which Creon is unable to revoke.

My next production, in 1999, was of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Pozzo was played by a black actor while Lucky was played by a white actor, inverting the conventional master-slave relationship as we have come to know it in South Africa. The two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, were played, respectively, by a white actor and a black actor.

The production played to schoolchildren as it was a schools set work for drama in Kwa Zulu Natal. On one evening, we gave a charity performance to unemployed citizens from a local Methodist Church shelter. One does not wish to call these unfortunate people "tramps", as they have been rehabilitated, but I did get a vivid sense that a strange kind of comedy of manners, or interaction between life and art, was being played out during that performance. The audience was particularly amused by references to Estragon's smelly boots that didn't fit him and to the argument about carrots and turnips. Interestingly, the audience that evening was made up of both black and white people, and so our casting of the two tramps directly reflected the reality of contemporary South Africa, where both black and white citizens find themselves out of work and "on the road".

My most recent production, in 2000, was Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. This has been my most challenging production to date, using multi-racial casting, because in South Africa, Earnest is very popular and is seen by most of the theatre-going public as a period drama and one which reinforces colonial English values. It seemed to me, however, that the play is quite revolutionary and has many resonances for contemporary South African society in which class divisions exist, where people marry for money, where young women defy their mothers to marry the person of their choice, and where babies (like novels) are frequently abandoned in unlikely places: like railway stations.

As a postgraduate student at London University in the 1980s, I had been greatly influenced by Katharine Worth's book on Oscar Wilde (Worth, 1993). Professor Worth notes how the play anticipates Jarry, Ionesco and Pirandello, and I was influenced by this perception in planning my production, realising that it was not simply a "period" play, but a modernistic work of art. In my programme notes, I wrote:

The Importance of Being Earnest is a classic of the theatre. Often thought of as a period drama, it is actually a highly inventive, revolutionary play, looking forward, as critics have noted, to the Absurdist drama of the twentieth century. At times the play seems to anticipate Ionesco, Beckett or Stoppard. On one level, the play takes the form of a complex "language game", in which words like "pleasure", are 163


used in various contexts, their meanings systematically deconstructed and exposed. The play explores the conflict between "pleasure" and Victorian morality, turning expectations on their heads: the most moralistic characters turn out to be the most decadent, while the most decadent character, the most pleasure seeking, turns out to be "earnest". In this production, we have retained the period setting, but in using modern South African actors, we have ventured into a post-modernist realm, the play occupying two time zones: England in 1895 and South Africa in 2000. We hope that this opposition produces a challenging, new interpretation of the play. (Director’s note, 2000)

My original idea for the production was to direct a completely surrealistic production, juxtaposing period costume with modern dress, with Act 1 taking place in London in 1895, and Acts 2 and 3 taking place in contemporary South Africa. I even thought of changing Lady Bracknell's references to train journeys to aeroplane flights.

However, my designer wanted to design a period setting in order to give opportunities to her stagecraft students. I also felt cautious about doing a post-modernist production which may not have been understood by South African audiences and critics. So the "revolutionary" aspect of the interpretation was watered down, although retaining the essential idea. I cast John Worthing, his ward, Cecily Cardew and the butler, Merriman, with black actors, while Lady Bracknell, Algernon, Gwendolen, Lane, Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble, were played by white actors, representing an older, more colonial order. In effect, Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble became colonial "do gooders" in an African society, concerned with the education and moral upliftment of John Worthing's ward.

Having directed Waiting for Godot in the previous year, I was much taken by the similarities between this play and Earnest, particularly in terms of the highly crafted, almost musical structure of both works, the repetition of words, phrases, and situations, the gags about eating (whether it be carrots, turnips, cucumber sandwiches or muffins) and the theme in both plays of "nothing to be done." (Beckett 1977:9) In this sense, Jack and Algernon are upper-class representatives of the tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, with nothing to do except invent word games and act roles. In this extract from the first act of Earnest, we are given a remarkable pre-echo of Beckett's world:

Algernon: ...Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis's, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven? Jack [irritably]: Oh! it is always nearly seven. Algernon: I'm hungry. Jack: I never knew you when you weren't... Algernon: What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre? Jack: Oh no! I loathe listening. Algernon: Well, let us go to the Club?

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Jack: Oh, no! I hate talking. Algernon: Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten? Jack: Oh, no! I can't bear looking at things. It is so silly. Algernon: Well, what shall we do? Jack: Nothing! Algernon: It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. (Wilde 1983:271)

In the past, I have said that theatre critics in South Africa are all too reluctant to engage with the ideas of a production, that while they comment on the performances, the design and costumes, the director's approach to a play is often ignored. (Pearce 1998:204) However, for this production, we were fortunate to receive a perceptive review from Humphrey Tyler, who noted the idea of "absurdity" in the production and brought out parallels between the play and Ionesco's drama, supporting the directorial approach. He was also supportive of the idea of using black actors in a period play. He writes:

It often doesn't work to put a black actor in a leading role in a classic English play but Thabo Godide is a marvellous right regular dude as John Worthing in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest that has been playing at the Courtyard Theatre on the Durban Berea. Stunningly accoutered, he enters left with the greatest savoir faire behind a devastatingly ebullient buttonhole. (Tyler, 2000)

Godide responded to the "dandyism" of the role, bringing out a parallel between the character and many contemporary South African blacks who enjoy dressing luxuriantly as a way of expressing their new economic status, compared to many white South Africans who prefer "dressing down" in order not to attract attention to themselves. The theme of "dandyism" was well appreciated by members of the audience. At the same time, both Jack and Algernon were providing different kinds of role models for South African men, who are traditionally more assertive in pursuing women, while the young women in the play, Gwendolen and Cecily, in pursuing their desires to be married to Ernest, provide different kinds of models for South African women. In this way, the play "mirrors" our own conventions of courtship, as much through differences of manner as through moments of similarity. This was surely Wilde's intention in relation to the audience of his day, in creating a comedy of manners as much as a comedy of ideas, stressing the absurdity of a situation where two characters fall in love with a man they hardly know on the basis of his name being Ernest. Clearly, both Gwendolen and Cecily are in love with an ideal. This again is something to which modern audiences can relate, for many young women in our society are in love with an ideal of masculinity, which perhaps men do not always fulfil. 165


What develops in the play is a gap between the luxuriance, wit, elegance and "femininity" of the male characters, Algernon and Jack, and their desire to be taken as "earnest" by their lovers. As Sinfield has noted, in the 1890s, "Manliness was a particularly middle class preoccupation. The newly dominant middle class justified itself by claiming manly purity, purpose and responsibility, and identified leisure class, correspondingly, with effeminate idleness and immorality." (Sinfield 1994:67-68) He comments: "The women's demand that their beaux be ‘earnest’ is a characteristically frivolous play upon prevailing middle-class mores; a further mark of the excessive leisure class frivolity of all the principals." (Sinfield 1994:70) Frivolity or not, Earnest provides a challenge to concepts of "masculinity" and "femininity", as provocative today in Durban as it was in London in 1895.

Powell writes that in Earnest, "Wilde adapted not a particular play, but an entire genre – practically cataloguing its varied devices, yet somehow creating a fresh impression rather than only collocating what others had done before him." (Powell 1990:139) The structure of the play is composite and eclectic, drawing on elements of naturalism, farce and melodrama. The play seems to look back to outworn conventions and ahead to modern drama. The artifice of the play, along with its dialectical engagement with the audience, anticipates Brecht, while the absurdity anticipates Ionesco. Finding a style for the play with contemporary South African actors provided a challenge, more so than in any of my previous productions at the Courtyard Theatre. When I directed Ghosts, I was clearly drawing on a naturalistic style, while when I directed Tartuffe, the style was deliberately theatrical and stylized, drawing on the tradition of commedia dell' arte. In Earnest, however, I felt that the style veered between stylised theatricality and realism. I wanted the actors to speak the lines as naturally as possible in their own voices, but at the same time to make the most of those moments in the play which are sheer artifice and melodrama, ironically so, for example, when Jack appears in mourning for his brother Ernest.

My rehearsal techniques employed a great deal of improvisation, of running the play in different styles, or with different tempi, using a series of different "adaptations" in order to discover what worked best for each actor and for each scene. Directing Algernon and Cecily to play their love scene very "lightly", brought out the fantasy and comedy of the writing. I also used a Brechtian technique of having the actors swap roles, in order for the actors to see the play from more than one perspective. The actors were alternatively asked to act seriously, to play for comedy, to listen to each other, to explore changes of rhythm, to overact, to concentrate on "communing" with their eyes. A number of possible improvisations were used in the time available in order to experiment with the play. 166


In an essay, discussing the play, one student wrote that in the Black community there is a belief that you name a child for a reason and that the person emulates the name that he or she has been given. The same student writes: “When I read and heard about people changing personalities in city and rural areas, I felt like laughing. The Black people in this country are like that. Most of them live in cities but they have houses in the country and they change their personalities depending on where they are. Even their names change.” (Zondi, 2000) Again one notices some fascinating parallels between this play and contemporary South African society.

A black student remarked that Lady Bracknell's interview with Jack Worthing in the first act, became "a racial issue." Lady Bracknell's class snobbishness regarding the circumstances of Jack's birth, was perceived as being underlined by racial prejudice, which for many South Africans is the way in which class prejudice has been experienced in this country.

In South Africa, at present, given our history, it is virtually impossible to use a multi-racial cast without making some kind of political statement. Audiences, thanks to a history of racial segregation, will immediately read into one’s casting their own perspectives and history. We are not yet able to cast a play simply by finding the best actor for the role. Ideally, audiences should be "colour blind", simply able to appreciate the actor's performance on its own terms. In the meantime, directors need deliberately to provoke audiences into new ways of seeing European plays by casting in unusual and challenging ways. We also need more critics who are capable of noticing these challenges to convention.

Notes 1. I am grateful to a number of colleagues who have assisted me with these productions: Susan DonaldsonSelby, who designed the settings for Ghosts and The Importance of Being Earnest; Jacky Vermaas, who designed the setting for Arms and the Man, Glenda Untiedt, who designed the setting for Antigone. I am also grateful to Debbie Lutge, who played Lady Bracknell, and Jay Pather, who gave valuable advice regarding the interpretation of Earnest. I am also grateful to have benefited from a number of stimulating discussions on the issue of multi-racial casting and the interpretation of European plays in a South African context, with my former PhD advisor, Robert Gordon, of Goldsmiths’ College, London University.

References Beckett, S. 1977. Waiting for Godot. London: Faber. Director's note, programme for the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest, Courtyard Theatre, 167


Technikon Natal, 15 April 2000. Pearce, B.M. 1998. The director and the South African theatre. South African Theatre Journal, 12(1&2): 203207. Powell, K.. 1990. Oscar Wilde and the Theatre of the 1890s . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sinfield, A.A. 1994. The Wilde Century. London: Cassell. Tyler, Humphrey 2000. Good old undead Oscar is a hit. Sunday Tribune, 23 April 2000. Wilde, O. 1983. The Importance of Being Earnest. In Wilde, O., Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Worth, Katharine. 1983. Oscar Wilde. New York: Grove. Zondi, Mlungisi. 2000. Text Analysis III essay, Department of Drama Studies, Technikon Natal.

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