COMMENTARY : Cancellation of ‘Miss Saigon’ Plays as a Tragedy : Stage: The protest against the casting of a non-Asian in the lead role was well intentioned but unsound.

When Actors’ Equity denied permission for Jonathan Pryce to appear on Broadway as the Engineer, the Eurasian brothel-keeper in “Miss Saigon,” it shot itself in the foot.

Producer Cameron Mackintosh had vowed to cancel the production if he couldn’t use Pryce. Wednesday, he made good on his promise. No Pryce, no show, no victors.

Official tally: Fifty jobs lost that would have gone to American actors (34 of those members of minorities); jobs and revenue lost by other theatrical and artistic workers, and a $25-million advance ticket sale--the largest on record--to be refunded to the public, biggest loser of all.

It would be less tragic if it had all gone for a principle worth upholding. But the reasons behind this fuss were fundamentally unsound. David Henry Hwang and B.D. Wong, the well-intentioned artists who initiated the protest against the casting of Pryce in “Miss Saigon,” believed that they were striking a blow for minority actors.

They were laying claim to a role they felt should be cast with an actor of Asian descent. But it would not necessarily have been correct to cast an Asian-American actor, any more than it was incorrect to have Pryce play it. To be faithful to the script, the Engineer would have to be played by an actor of mixed Caucasian and Asian heritage, as was explained in a letter to the Ethnic Minorities Committee of Actors’ Equity by Velina Hasu Houston and Teresa Kay Williams, representing the Los Angeles-based Amerasian League.

Houston and Williams pointed out that Pryce is at least half as right for the role as any “mono-racial” Asian-American actor might be. They went on to suggest that if no suitable mixed-blood Eurasian actor could be found to do it, then the role should go to an Asian actor (as opposed to an Asian-American one), “because in terms of culture,” they argued, “an Asian actor would be closer to the psyche of the character.” Barring that, they wrote, an Asian-American actor would be “the third best choice.”

This borders on discussions about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Far from encouraging enlightened nontraditional casting, it accomplishes the reverse. It limits the vision.

To insist that only a Eurasian should be cast in the Pryce role is at least as absurd as insisting that only Pryce can play it. Carried to its conclusion, such an argument is tantamount to insisting that only Russian actors should play Chekhov, British ones Shakespeare and French ones Moliere . And what does it make of the casting of Lea Salonga, a Filipina, in the leading “Saigon” role of the Vietnamese Kim? Such shortsightedness only diminishes the theater and everyone in it.

In terms of satisfying Equity’s own “import” stipulations, Pryce fully qualified as a star and certainly delivers a star turn in “Miss Saigon.” It was an abdication of responsibility for Equity’s executive secretary, Alan Eisenberg, to dismiss this consideration by saying that “Equity’s position is that it cannot participate in this kind of casting decision.” Even British Equity expressed its indignation at such reverse discrimination.

Surely Pryce is not the only person who can play the part of the Engineer, but it is easy to understand why the show’s producer, Cameron Mackintosh, wanted to open the musical on Broadway with the best of his London cast and try to fully re-create its success--a success contributed to in no small measure by Pryce.

Ironically, Mackintosh was able, with far less ammunition, to persuade Equity to allow British performers Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman to open on Broadway in “The Phantom of the Opera.” He later had no trouble casting an Afro American, Robert Guillaume, to succeed Crawford in the Phantom role in Los Angeles.

Had Pryce been granted permission to come to Broadway, he would not have stayed forever. His role would then have gone to a Eurasian, Asian or Asian-American actor. Touring companies down the line would have featured actors acceptable to both Equity and Asian-Americans nationwide. Equity could have insisted on it as a condition of any deal it struck with Mackintosh. Equity could have insisted on a time limit for Pryce’s appearance on Broadway. Equity could have gone after any arrangement it wanted, had it wanted one at all.

Yes, there was the possibility of taking the matter to arbitration. Equity virtually implored Mackintosh to do so, although well aware that he had already stated that he would not. In the best of all possible worlds, that would have been the best course. Mackintosh had an excellent chance of being vindicated, Equity would have saved face and negotiations could have forged ahead. But this is not the best of all possible worlds. And when pigheadedness set in, it set in on both sides of the table.

The question of racial casting is not new and it won’t go away. Entire symposiums have been devoted to examining and re-examining its permutations with an eye to encouraging multiracial and nontraditional casting. It’s a hot potato, because everyone is afraid of offending everyone else.

To blame Mackintosh for canceling the show, as Equity has, is to pass the buck. Equity’s action played an unequivocal role in scuttling the production, and its intransigence on the issue smacked of artistic blackmail.

No one can dispute the urgent need to expand opportunities for actors from all ethnic minorities. It is this ongoing tragedy that fomented the other. But the cancellation of “Miss Saigon” serves no one. There have been cases where the inappropriateness of cross-racial casting has been clear and compelling. This, unhappily for all concerned, was not one of them.