Nothing will surpass the Summer of 16 Willy Wonka Wall of Nut Jokes. 6-8 year olds, dressed as squirrels, clutching Styrofoam nuts backstage, which they could not handle. Thus prompting the costumer and I to say a few choice words:
" Hold your nut in both hands like a precious jewel."
" No, your nut does not have a chocolate center, who told you that? Don't eat it."
"Both hands, people, we can't have nuts just rolling around everywhere."
" Just because your nut is broken does not mean you get to switch it for one of
the littler kids' intact nut."
"Bring your nut to Miss Tricia, she has the hot glue gun, she'll fix it.
Miss Tricia "This it not in my contract."
And of course, #2 was the Artistic Director's son, who not only bit into his nut, but got a chunk caught in his teeth that his mom had to remove. How embarrassing.
This year, with a different company (I have shirts now that say STAFF from three different companies), the kids are older for Anything Goes, and the politics are different. In this case, the Denver company is a satellite of the Boulder company, and is treated as the red headed step child. For example: the Denver show cannot have mikes because they're being used in Boulder. For Oliver. The spaces are similar in size, but based on type of show, anyone with a brain will tell you if you had to choose, Oliver is the show that could live without mikes. Anything Goes, belted and tapped by 16 year olds, cannot. The music director is a veteran of this company whilst myself and the choreographer are new this year. We are beginning to see why this company struggles to keep people. The choreographer and musical director are working on all the Denver shows this summer, the SM and I are the only ones who signed on for just one show. I've done the back to back summer show game, and I don't need the money as much as I need a break. These gigs are rough in the first place, if you're a teacher the other 9 months of the year...OY. God Bless my friends who do this all summer and then return to their own classrooms in August.
The summer show choices seem a little off,and I'm new to this company so I'm always unsure of the age groups. I assumed Mulan was the smaller kids, and Oliver and Anything Goes were the olders. I was half right, I guess Mulan is older, I probably would have directed that one if I had known. I wanted nothing to do with Oliver, I don't love that show. So we're talking about the summer, and the choreographer says "Why are they doing Oliver? Oliver is not a children's show. Oliver has children in it." Well put, prompting the music director to ask "Why Anything Goes?I usually do text analysis with my students, but I'm not with this show. I don't want to explain 'molest'."
At the first production meeting, which was held in Boulder, don't get me started---OK, a director, choreographer, set designer and stage manager all have to drive from Denver to Boulder to meet with ONE PERSON IN BOULDER. The ONE PERSON couldn't come to us? ANYWAY. At this meeting, I asked about the content of the show. It's not a "junior" version, its the whole show. It says "young performers edition" on the posters, but the scripts are intact "hell", "damn", "sex", "molest" and Chinese jokes. This is a camp for 10-16 year olds, I'm new, what's the policy? No, don't it's fine, I'm told, they can cuss. Okay...but...umm...sex.? "They don't really get it", I was told. They will if a good director explains it to them. BUT OK. So. The Chinese bit. How wound up are we about the Chinese jokes? "Ya...we should change that ...." Leave the sex and sexism and cussing, that's fine but change the Chinese joke.
To...what? Whom can we joke about these days and not be accused of racism?
The production manager pauses. Hmmm.
"How about Russian?" I perk up. "Eastern block, something vaguely Russian. That way we can still do the bit with the costume hiding Reno 'cause it's a babushka."
Sure, they'll run it past the boss.
Who is not present, even though we four were called to BOULDER for this meeting, where the office resides. It's fine.
And thus, we now have Russians instead of Chinese.
At rehearsals, we have a kid who won't let it go. "I don't get it, why was it racist?" He doesn't like my explanation, as I'm making it up, and then wants to know why it's not racist to make fun of the Russians.
And all I can think to say is "They're white, too."
Scene.
Boulder and Denver company do the same shows, so my feeling is that the Boulder people don't really get Denver yet, and that's why they wanted the change. Because in Denver people get the show was written in 1930 banana and it was cultural, just like the "N" word in Huck Finn. But Boulder people---who are all white, by the way, there is not a Boulder Chinese Council who are going to be offended by a dated comic poke at their funny hats and missing "r's"----Boulder will get upset. So since our show comes first, they chose to catch it now and see how it goes before they do it there. I rewrote the jokes so they are Eastern block, and translated "no pants" into Russian. It'll be fun, and much easier to take played by two small Caucasian girls, one of which is practically an albino.
Now, what I would enjoy is a Denver Russian Council who will demand we cease production for mocking their babushkas, potatoes, borscht and language.
However, nobody wished to address my concerns about the sexist, patriarchal stereotypes, as we're all willing to just shrug at those and go "Well, it's the time period. God Bless Cole Porter." That's all fine as long as you do not mock a person of Chinese descent for their English language imperfections or hat wear.
And, as far as I know, they're keeping the murder in Oliver.
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