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London's Black Theater
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20528 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1992 |
2,745 Words |
| Author
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Claudia Woolgar
Claudia Woolgar is a free-lance theater critic and arts
journalist based in London. |
If I see another play with a palm tree in it I'm going to go mad! An exotic set design, a good song and dance routine, or a heavy piece about racial repression--and London's black actors are in work. In work but unhappy.
For a country that experienced a considerable influx of immigrants in the 1950s and '60s--so that many of today's young black actors are British born and bred--and for a capital city with an estimated 20 percent ethnic minority, the accessibility for black actors to the main stages of London is nothing short of disgraceful.
A tourist arriving in London who wants to go to the theater will probably head first for the West End. There he will find the usual plethora of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, a Royal Shakespeare transfer, a smattering of "middle-of-the-road" comedies and…Five Guys Named Moe--black theater in the very heart of London's West End.
It is a great show: full of energy, wonderful Louis Jordan music, and dancing in the aisles. It plays to a virtually packed house every night and is an evening of celebration guaranteed to whisk those blues away. It has also given regular work to a handful of black actors for almost two years now. So why complain?
The problem with Five Guys Named Moe is straightforward. It represents, at the very heart of the West End, the frustration--even anger--among black actors that they do not get cast on equal terms with white actors within established and respected companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the Royal National Theatre. It takes shows like Five Guys or a political piece about racial repression before casting directors will give black actors the work they deserve. Work they deserve not just because they are talented, but because London is a multiracial capital and its theater should reflect that.
The Establishment
Black actors, writers, and directors frequently cite white management as the key to this imbalance, but it lies deeper than that. The problem is better described as the Establishment of the British theater. So locked is it in the great British theatrical tradition that black actors, writers, and directors have, on the whole, grown tired of fighting the prejudice deriving from that legacy.
The Posse is a group of eight talented black actors that is
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