A Controversial Company: Debating the Casting of the RSC’s<i>The Orphan of Zhao</i>

Rogers, Amanda; Thorpe, Ashley

doi:10.1080/10486801.2014.946925

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…That cultural workers tend to be liberal, pro-welfare and relatively left-wing may not be wholly surprising. The question that follows, then, is the distance between the attitudes and values of the sector's workers and the academic analysis demonstrating bias in reporting or representation, as seen in theatre (Rogers & Thorpe, 2014), and publishing (Ramdarshan Bold, 2019).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The values of culture? Social closure in the political identities, policy preferences, and social attitudes of cultural and creative workers

McAndrew

O’Brien

Taylor

2019

The Sociological Review

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Cultural consumption and production are both characterised by multiple dimensions of inequality. Research in cultural stratification has highlighted the links between the exclusivity of cultural production, the type of cultural works created, and the audiences and public receptions for culture. We contribute to this agenda by examining a hitherto unexplored area: the cultural values and political identities of workers in the creative industries and cultural sector. Analysis of the British Social Attitudes (2010–2015) surveys and British Election Study Internet Panel (2016–2017) surveys demonstrates that creative and cultural workers have distinct cultural values. They are among the most left-wing, liberal and pro-welfare of any occupations and industries. This sets them apart from the average respondent who is relatively more right-wing, authoritarian and more in favour of welfare control. When examining their non-electoral participation, we also find they are highly civically engaged in terms of contacting elected representatives and government officials, signing petitions, political volunteering, political donations, participating in demonstrations, ethical consumption and boycotts, and industrial action. Moreover, they are more likely to report that they supported Remain in the 2016 EU ‘Brexit’ Referendum, to report unhappiness with the Leave result, and to identify with Remain voters. We conclude that distinct occupational cultures are particularly significant in the case of the cultural and creative sector, given creative workers’ role in representing society and the civic realm via the products of their work. We also argue that occupational cultures constitute an important, under-recognised source of social and cultural division.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The values of culture? Social closure in the political identities, policy preferences, and social attitudes of cultural and creative workers

McAndrew

O’Brien

Taylor

2019

The Sociological Review

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“…This understanding of typecasting has been explored by various scholars in theatre and television studies, as a subset of broader casting practices that structure these cultural industries. These authors have largely explored the exclusions that result from routine casting decisions, whether relating to the lack of Black actors in Shakespeare (Rogers 2013), controversies over the casting of East Asians in The Orphan of Zhao (Rogers and Thorpe 2014), the stereotypes faced by British Chinese actors (Knox 2013), or the barriers driving Black British television actors to seek work in America (Knox, Forthcoming).…”

Section: Typecasting Inequality and The Somatic Normmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resistance and Resignation: Responses to Typecasting in British Acting

Friedman

O’Brien

2017

Cultural Sociology

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This article draws on 38 in-depth interviews with British actors to explore the operation of typecasting. First, we argue that typecasting acts as the key mechanism through which the 'somatic norm' is established in British acting. It delivers an oversupply of leading roles for white, male, middle-class actors while ensuring that those who deviate somatically are restricted to largely socially caricatured roles. Second, we focus on the career trajectories of 'othered' actors. While they frequently experience acting roles as offensive and discriminatory, we demonstrate how most nonetheless reluctantly accept the terms of their 'type' in order to survive and succeed. Third, we focus on the minority who have attempted to challenge their type. Here we find that successful resistance is accomplished by carefully choosing work that subverts the somatic norm. However, the ability to exercise such choice is highly contingent on resources associated with an actor's class origin.

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“…5 See, for example, Christopher Balme's now-canonical Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical Syncretism and Post-Colonial Drama (1999) and also Rustom Bharucha, Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture (1993). For differing perspectives on colour-blind, non-traditional and other diverse casting practices, see, for example: Young, 2013;Thomas, 2014;Rogers & Thorpe, 2014;Thompson, 2011;Newman, 1989;Deboo, 1990;andSchultz, 1991. 6 See McDougall, 2002. How might the performance of Māori in Shakespearean productions be seen as ambi-valent: simultaneously challenging and reifying what are still conventional, often virulent, not quite post-colonial, characterisations of the relationship between Māori and Pākehā New Zealanders?…”

Section: Curtain Callmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bicultural Dream in Aotearoa New Zealand: (De)Colonising Shakespeare?

Mazer¹

2019

tekaharoa

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This essay came into being as a way of ‘thinking out loud’ about the stirring of traditions – Shakespearean and Māori – into an idealised spectacle of reconciliation that belies its own theatrical, historical and social foundations.[1] When I was coming up as a theatre director in the USA, the production of Shakespearean theatre was aspirational, requiring rigorous training in textual analysis as well as physical and vocal grace, as was evident in the shows I still remember from school and other trips to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the 1970s and 1980s. Whether on professional stages, in schools and universities, or in community theatres, Shakespeare’s plays were produced, often explicitly, to uplift us – whoever ‘we’ were – from our otherwise more mundane theatrical and social circumstances and preoccupations. The Pop-up Globe Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand, is a product of such aspirations. It promises an encounter with erudition made accessible through low jokes and entertaining shenanigans.[2] And it certainly delivers. Shakespeare’s plays are great because of their universalism, so we continue to be told. But in fact they were first and foremost products of their place and time, playing on and revealing the strata of class, race and gender in ways that were affirmational to their audiences, acts of reification rather than radicalisation. So too the Pop-up Globe’s bicultural production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2017/2018).[3] In finding common ground with the groundlings, it also necessarily plays into rather than against stereotypes, and toward rather than against affirmation of the status quo. The Pop-up Globe’s success is that it mixes entertainment with education. Its appeal is to teachers, students and their parents – a spoonful of sugar approach to an otherwise starchy run-in with high culture. But what is it they’re teaching?

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A Controversial Company: Debating the Casting of the RSC’sThe Orphan of Zhao

Cited by 9 publications

References 1 publication

The values of culture? Social closure in the political identities, policy preferences, and social attitudes of cultural and creative workers

The values of culture? Social closure in the political identities, policy preferences, and social attitudes of cultural and creative workers

Resistance and Resignation: Responses to Typecasting in British Acting

A Bicultural Dream in Aotearoa New Zealand: (De)Colonising Shakespeare?

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