Appearance-blind Casting

A topic we discussed during Friday's class really got me thinking. I am a fan of the Kenneth Branagh film adaptations of Shakespearean plays, and I think that they are a wonderful example of how appearance-blind casting can work where it is appropriate. I will use a couple examples to illustrate the idea.

In Branagh's 1993 version of Much Ado About Nothing, we have Don Pedro played by Denzel Washington. I believe he gives a very good performance, capturing the elegance of the character yet not allowing himself to be too elevated over the men with whom he is serving. This allows for the commraderie between Don Pedro and his soldiers, despite him having a higher station in life. You then have his bastard brother, Don John, played by Keanu Reeves. If one were to attempt an entirely realistic depiction of this family, Reeves would be, as the Reduced Shakespeare Company would say, "Racially challenged" to play the brother of Denzel Washington. However, it works just fine in this movie. I personally believe Don John, a self-proclaimed "Man of few words", is a good choice if you're going to have Keanu Reeves doing Shakespeare: the fewer, the better.

Yet Branagh's adaptation of Othello in 1995 makes no attempt to cast other than in a traditional vein, with Lawrence Fishburne playing the Moor of Venice. This is of course a key element to the story, and thus I do not believe it would be considered by many to be a racist choice to only cast a man of color as Othello.

I believe that both of these ideas have their place in the consideration of casting a show such as The Death of Klinghoffer. It is up to the director to decide if he wants to cast appearance-blind so as to capture the grander humanity that Adams intended to depict, or if he wants to be very specific about each character's appearance becasue they are portraying real people. Either approach is valid, I believe. However, I do believe it would be beneficial to make your decision known at the time of auditions, so that people are clear about what is being sought in a given production of the work.