Tom Sutcliffe: Only when colour on stage isn't an issue will we have made progress The management's attempt to argue that the colour of the performer's skin was irrelevant and could be tweaked with make-up didn't impress him. And the Royal Shakespeare Company found itself under attack after it emerged that a production of the Chinese classic, The Orphan of Zhao, would include European actors playing Asian characters. Artistic director Greg Doran's explanation that the same company were delivering three plays in total and that Asian actors would be playing non-Asians in other productions didn't appear to placate his critics, who included an East Asian actor who hadn't made it through the auditions. Given that degree of sensitivity about cross-racial casting, it doesn't seem likely that anyone would dare give the Moor to anyone but a black actor - though not impossible that an actor from the Maghreb might cut up rough.