Actor Janet Suzman criticised for calling theatre ‘a white invention’
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Version 0 of 1. One of Britain’s most distinguished actors sparked controversy on Monday by claiming that “theatre is a white invention” and it is in the DNA of white people, but not of other people. Dame Janet Suzman was responding to the views of Meera Syal, the actor and writer who appealed last week to the theatre industry to do more to cater for Asian audiences. “Theatre is a white invention, a European invention, and white people go to it. It’s in their DNA. It starts with Shakespeare,” Suzman said. The Shakespearean actor, who was born in, and has worked in, South Africa and whose aunt was the anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman, has been a vocal opponent of racism. She was made a dame in 2011 for services to drama. Suzman said: “I’ve just done a South African play. My co-star is a young black man from the slums of Cape Town. Totally brilliant actor. I saw one black face in the room, at the Print Room. I rail against that and say why don’t black people come to see a play about one of the most powerful African states? “And they don’t bloody come. They’re not interested. It’s not in their culture, that’s why. Just as their stuff is not in white culture,” she said. “Fair’s fair. Theatre is a totally European invention, as is tragedy. Other countries don’t do tragedy. It’s an invention by the Greeks.” Asked about Syal calling for theatres to cater for Asian audiences, Suzman said: “Catering is probably the correct word. It’s as if one was ordering food for a special wedding where the tastes are different. “Some people are vegetarians and some are not. I don’t know what to say. Until the Asian writers make plays that will appeal, how can one say that? “Stuff’s going on at the National [Theatre], which is an adaptation of that brilliant novel written by a white woman about the slums of [Mumbai]. If that’s catering, then it’s brilliantly catered for. East is East, which is bloody well thought through. But it’s up to writers to do it.” Her comments drew some furious and some baffled reactions. Syal said: “I don’t think I’ve ever heard any single race or culture claim theatre as their invention before. “The sharing of stories between performers and audience stretches across every single civilisation beginning with the oral tradition of re-enacting folk tales or religious myths, graduating into more formalised forms of structured staging. “But this shouldn’t be an argument about what theatre is or who ‘invented’ it. This is a more profound discussion about the relevance of the stories we tell and for whom we tell them.” Ben Okri, the Booker-prize winning novelist, dismissed Suzman’s comments, saying: “She’s ill informed about the very old traditions of African and Indian cultures which go back thousands of years. It’s sad that she thinks that.” During his time serving on the National Theatre board, Okri recalled: “They tore their hair out about how to get black audiences. It’s partly the problem of the plays.” He added that theatres sometimes did not seem friendly places and that it was about making people feel comfortable. Stephen Poliakoff, the acclaimed creator of Dancing on the Edge – a TV drama about black jazz musicians who encounter racism – said that audiences were not “all white”. But he said that the increased casting of actors from diverse backgrounds, as well as the rise of interesting young writers such as Benjamin Kuffuor, would make a difference. Poliakoff said: “I don’t think that people ever get the future right about audiences. Theatre was thought of as very middle-aged 20 years ago. Theatres have become sexier, young people go to the theatre a lot more than they did 20 years ago. The idea that they’re all white is ridiculous. “Anybody who tries to speak on behalf of any section of the audience is bound to get it wrong. You can’t ghettoise it. The more leading actors we have from the most diverse backgrounds is better at getting audiences into theatres.” He added: “There are a number of exciting Asian playwrights that are just emerging. Whether they get the breaks they deserve is a whole other question.” Dawn Walton, the founder and artistic director of the Sheffield-based Eclipse theatre, a black-led touring company, said Suzman’s comments were “ludicrous”. She said: “It’s what I was told 20 years ago. It was explained to me very carefully that the black community does not go to the theatre … It was not my experience. Theatre, story-telling, has been happening all over the world ad infinitum and it does not belong to any particular race.” David Lan, artistic director of the Young Vic, said Suzman was wrong and her comments raised all manner of questions. He added: “The theatre we have has two explicit historical beginnings. One is the very early church … and what we think of as the classical theatre of Greece. But what exactly was that? Where did that come from? What was Greece? And so on and so on. Our culture is much more complex than that. “Also, theatre is music, theatre is dance. If you’re talking about a certain kind of bourgeois theatre which developed in European cities in the 17th and 18th centuries, then yes, that is a white invention. But the best of our theatre draws from the whole world.” He said: “It is not the reason people might not go to the theatre. My experience is that if you do work which is genuinely interesting and people want to see, then they will come. You have then got to produce the work in a way that they will come.” Walton and Lan were at an event in London on Monday where Arts Council England announced details of a fundamental shift in its diversity policy, bringing it into the mainstream and promising to publish data on how well the 670 arts organisations it regularly funds are doing. Companies that fail to make progress face having their funding cut. More theatre coverage The Elephant Man review – Bradley Cooper is almost unrecognisable Declare your genius: complete Oscar Wilde’s epigrams – quiz A Show for Christmas review – schmaltz-free Yule sentiment from Daniel Kitson Susannah Clapp: the 10 standout theatrical performances of 2014 |