‘The Dog, the Guard, the Horses and the Maid’: Diverse Casting at the Royal Shakespeare Company
This article takes as its starting point a quotation from the British East Asian actor Paul Courtenay Hyu concerning casting practice at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC): ‘They have an all-black Julius Caesar and an all-Indian Much Ado, but when they decide to do the Chinese Hamlet, they cast fourteen out of seventeen actors and all of the major parts as non-Chinese. In the 21st century, that’s unbelievable.’ Hyu raises many issues including diversity policies, politics of ethnic minority casting, and cultural representation, all of which were contested following the casting choices made by the RSC in 2012. I use the American scholar Ayanna Thompson’s theories concerning ‘non-traditional’ casting policies as a lens through which to analyse contemporary British theatrical practices. The concepts of ‘colour-blind’ and ‘cross-cultural’ casting are examined in the context of the World Shakespeare Festival where the ethos of celebrating Britain’s ‘unique internationalism’ and diversity was championed. As the Olympic year drew to a close, there were clear tensions between celebration and condemnation, expectation and disappointment, visibility and invisibility, regarding the representation of performers from ethnic minority backgrounds appearing on stage at the RSC. Through an examination of Much Ado About Nothing directed by Iqbal Khan, and Julius Caesar and The Orphan of Zhao, both directed by Gregory Doran, this article seeks to address the complexities involved in different approaches to casting, and the impact these evolving practices have on the cultural representation of diverse communities in contemporary Britain.
Theatrical Pillage in Asia: Redirecting the Intercultural Traffic
The potential and the problems of multicultural theatre have frequently been described and debated in this as in other theatre journals, but discussions of its value and viability have generally been in ethical terms – over how far it is possible for the West to ‘import’ or otherwise employ the theatrical traditions of other cultures without resort to an imperialist appropriation of what is found ‘consumable’, to the detriment of the culture thus despoiled. While not ignoring the moral arguments, John Russell Brown here deals also with the practical issues – notably, how far different kinds of theatre depend on being ‘site-specific’ not only in terms of the performers involved, but also in terms of audiences and their responses. He argues that, paradoxically, truly intercultural theatre is more often to be found where western influences from Hollywood films or pop music have become part of the lived experience of eastern cultures, or in western communities where (for example) British and West Indian or ‘Anglo’ and Latino-American traditions have become intertwined. He suggests that rather than trying to embrace the substance of ‘other’ traditions, western theatre might better benefit by exploring the conventions that modulate the relationship between actors and audience, or the approach of the actor to different kinds of ‘text’. He concludes: ‘By using overseas research to develop its own inheritance, a theatre might discover what it alone needs to create and encourage a more active and imaginative response from its local audience.’ A widely published writer on drama and theatre, John Russell Brown was first Head of the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, and was subsequently an Associate Director at the National Theatre in London. Currently he is visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York.
Simulation Analysis of Local Heat Treatment Formability of an Aerospace Aluminum Alloy Frame Parts
Wang Zhijian1,a, Guo Fangyu1,b, Shang Xiaofeng1,c, Song Hongwu2,d, Wang Ling3,e and Wang Jiale1,f 1School of Mechatronics Engineering, Shenyang Aerospace University, Shenyang 110136, China 2Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Shenyang 110016, China 3Shenyang aircraft industry company, Shenyang 110134, China aWangzhijian1974@sina.com, b1486121506@qq.com, c1009074102@qq.com dhwsong@imr.ac.cn, ew_ling2008@aliyun.com, f1591897439@qq.com