Casting Gall

The “Oleanna” casting controversy is disturbing inasmuch as it reflects a continuing erosion of artistic rights (“The Storm Over ‘Oleanna,’ ” by Richard Stayton, Jan. 30).

If David Mamet wants a black actor in a part he wrote as white, then the Mark Taper Forum has no business objecting. This is what we pay our artists to do--make creative decisions. Sometimes they appear ill-advised, but here we won’t know until we see the production. Why shouldn’t Mamet’s celebrated ear and eye as writer and director be given the benefit of the artistic doubt?

More artistic damage is done if we’re to take seriously a quote by the actor in question, Lionel Mark Smith. He says: “I deserve a shot (at this part). My father was a heroin dealer and my mother died of alcoholism. I remember the police kicking my door in when I was 4, looking for my father.” He then relates further examples of his troubling and difficult youth.

I want to give Smith the benefit of the doubt and hope that his statement didn’t really mean to suggest that his tragic upbringing entitles him to employment. This Queen-for-a-Day selection method is victimization run amok and does a disservice to Smith’s own life, diminishing his very real, even heroic, accomplishments as a human being and actor.

JOHN BONI

Encino