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William Shakespeare was white. His plays were stories about white people. The actors were white. That is how it has been for 400 years.
Now, in the name of "diversity", the parts in his plays are being wrongfully takes from white actors and given to Negroes. What this does is trash the most famous playwright in history.
And, to what end? To take some Negro actors off of welfare? This must stop:
400 years after Shakespeare's death, a diverse world is his stage
Elysa Gardner, @elysagardner, USA TODAY 8 a.m. EDT April 3, 2016
David Oyelowo became the first black actor to play one of Shakespeare's kings in a Royal Shakespeare Company production, in an acclaimed 2000 staging of 'King Henry VI.'(Photo: Manuel Harlan @RSC)
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Here's a dramatic irony: The playwright who gave us the most high-profile forum for diversity is a long-dead white male whose work was, in his day, performed exclusively by men who shared his skin color.
William Shakespeare shuffled off his mortal coil 400 years ago this month (April 23 is the observed date), and while his plays remain as ubiquitous as ever, their presentation has certainly evolved. As concerns about the representation of different races, genders and perspectives have embroiled Hollywood and mass media, artists have continued to look to the Bard to examine changing times and reach wider audiences.
This year has already brought one Hamlet starring a black actor — Paapa Essiedu, who plays the character as a modern graffiti artist in the Royal Shakespeare Company's current production, in the playwright's native Stratford-upon-Avon — and another, at Baltimore's Cohesion Theatre Company, depicting the prince of Denmark as a lesbian. Broadway's last Romeo and Juliet, staged in 2013, cast Orlando Bloom and African-American actress Condola Rashad as the doomed young lovers, and its most recent Julius Caesar, in 2005, starred Denzel Washington as Brutus.
Now, in the name of "diversity", the parts in his plays are being wrongfully takes from white actors and given to Negroes. What this does is trash the most famous playwright in history.
And, to what end? To take some Negro actors off of welfare? This must stop:
400 years after Shakespeare's death, a diverse world is his stage
Elysa Gardner, @elysagardner, USA TODAY 8 a.m. EDT April 3, 2016David Oyelowo became the first black actor to play one of Shakespeare's kings in a Royal Shakespeare Company production, in an acclaimed 2000 staging of 'King Henry VI.'(Photo: Manuel Harlan @RSC)
278 CONNECTTWEETLINKEDIN 2 COMMENTEMAILMORE
Here's a dramatic irony: The playwright who gave us the most high-profile forum for diversity is a long-dead white male whose work was, in his day, performed exclusively by men who shared his skin color.
William Shakespeare shuffled off his mortal coil 400 years ago this month (April 23 is the observed date), and while his plays remain as ubiquitous as ever, their presentation has certainly evolved. As concerns about the representation of different races, genders and perspectives have embroiled Hollywood and mass media, artists have continued to look to the Bard to examine changing times and reach wider audiences.
This year has already brought one Hamlet starring a black actor — Paapa Essiedu, who plays the character as a modern graffiti artist in the Royal Shakespeare Company's current production, in the playwright's native Stratford-upon-Avon — and another, at Baltimore's Cohesion Theatre Company, depicting the prince of Denmark as a lesbian. Broadway's last Romeo and Juliet, staged in 2013, cast Orlando Bloom and African-American actress Condola Rashad as the doomed young lovers, and its most recent Julius Caesar, in 2005, starred Denzel Washington as Brutus.
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