The Wilson Manifesto, Part 2

When playwright August Wilson recently attacked the casting of blacks in roles written for whites and pleaded for more support of black-specific theaters (Theater Notes, Sept. 1), he created a wave of discussion.

Those who are only now hearing about Wilson’s controversial remarks will find the transcript in the current issue of American Theatre magazine.

Here are some reactions from a few of those close to the issues:

“Racial diversity in our society has to be reflected on our stage,” said Gordon Davidson, producer-artistic director of Center Theatre Group, which co-produced and presented three Wilson plays as part of its Ahmanson series. “The healthiest way to do that is to ignore color [in casting some plays] and, at the same time, do some race-specific plays. It’s sometimes hard juggling both.

“Wilson speaks with great passion and fervor about a wrong in our society, about a feeling of being used and enslaved. . . . But I can’t understand why an actor playing Hamlet can’t use his racial soul to infuse his interpretation of the part with a new energy. I will fight for the right of James Earl Jones to do Big Daddy [in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”]. . . . Acting is mimicry of one kind or another. It’s transforming oneself into a character.”

Davidson rejected Wilson’s contention that money spent on colorblind casting is at the expense of minority playwrights. Part of the $1.47 million that the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund gave CTG to help develop a larger Latino audience put new Latino plays on the Mark Taper Forum stage, Davidson said.

But the Taper’s current black-specific play, “Having Our Say” (which was adapted by a white writer from the autobiography of two black women), was developed elsewhere. Is the Taper developing new black playwrights?

“We have a lot [of new black plays] in the pipeline,” Davidson said. “I guarantee there will be writers of color in the New Theatre for Now”--a trio of new plays that will receive main-stage productions next spring.

Davidson said he “won’t be happy in this town until there are more mid-sized, ethnic-specific theaters. But I would applaud those theaters if they also want to do ‘Death of a Salesman.’ ” Wilson had cited an all-black “Salesman” as something that shouldn’t be done.

Black actor Andre De Shields recently played Willy Loman in a cross-racial “Death of a Salesman” in Buffalo, N.Y.; he’s now rehearsing “Play On!” at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. He has auditioned four times for three Wilson plays but has never been cast. “There is something about his characters that excludes me,” De Shields said. “That’s the same bitter pill I swallow when I dream of being in ‘The King and I’ or ‘Arcadia.’ ”

He believes that “Death of a Salesman,” on the other hand, “transcends the color line.” De Shields cited a shared theme between Arthur Miller’s play and Wilson’s work: “The characters are attempting to acquire the American dream, which has supplanted all other belief systems, though it’s largely an hallucination.”

For L. Kenneth Richardson, director of Blacksmyths Writers Lab--the Taper’s wing for black playwrights--and co-founder of the black-specific Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey, Wilson’s “most important issue was the lack of support for the development of black writers. Here in L.A. I can name at least five [black] writers who deserve to be on main stages. But to get a play on by a black who is not politically correct, who demands respect as an artist, is damn near impossible. Funding has a funny way of not appearing when it’s needed.”

Wilson’s plays are easily produced, but “you can’t starve 20 writers in the name of one. Most producers think he’s a sure bet. One person is let into the party and then put up as an example of support for black theater.”

Richardson believes that the minority-targeted grants to large institutions “is not money well spent. A black theater would take the money, develop the audience, and cross-pollinate and co-produce with other theaters.”

Richardson refused to discuss his or Wilson’s casting views, other than to say, “it’s the biggest bunch of bull to say the American theater is colorblind. Andre Braugher and Denzel Washington get to play those roles because they’re Andre Braugher and Denzel Washington. Most people don’t.” He added that if producers were to use Wilson’s remarks as an excuse to do even less “nontraditional” casting, “that’s racist thinking.”

Jack O’Brien, artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre, which co-produced and presented two of Wilson’s plays, liked Wilson’s speech and agreed that “colorblindness is not sensible.” Nonetheless, he OKs cross-racial casting if it’s “color-sensitive and serves the play.” For example, casting members of the Capulet family from two races “begs the question,” but casting the Capulets from one race and the Montagues from another is “cool, fabulous. It would intensify the dilemma we feel. Just don’t mix and match with no regard.” Reminded that Wilson disapproves of any casting of one race in roles written for another, O’Brien replied, “August doesn’t run this theater.”