‘Romeo & Juliet’ Play Starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers Faces ‘Barrage of Racial Abuse,’ Producer Says ‘This Must Stop’
‘Romeo & Juliet’ Play Starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers Faces ‘Barrage of Racial Abuse,’ Producer Says ‘This Must Stop’
The Jamie Lloyd Company has hit back after its 'Romeo & Juliet' play has been the subject of racial abuse aimed at an unnamed cast member.
The Jamie Lloyd Company has hit back after its production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” has been the subject of what they call a “barrage of deplorable racial abuse” aimed at an unnamed cast member.
The play, directed by Jamie Lloyd (“Sunset Boulevard”), stars “Spider-Man: No Way Home” star Tom Holland as Romeo and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers (“Sex Education”) as Juliet.
On Friday, the Jamie Lloyd Company issued a statement, saying: “Following the announcement of our ‘Romeo & Juliet’ cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company. This must stop.”
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Following the announcement of our ‘Romeo & Juliet’ cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company. This must stop.”
I'm guessing the racist jerks complaining about the casting would be really upset if they knew that Juliet was played by a dude named Robert Goffe in the very first performance of the play in 1597. source These bigots are so busy complaining about a replacement in race for the actor playing Juliet that they're not even consistent asking for Juliet to be played the original gender of the actor in the first performance. Where is your consistency, bigots?
Also observe how those "replacement in race" people are completely silent on the 3 body problem show that made pretty much all of the Chinese characters from the book into westerners
I haven't watched the Netflix show. Do they actually cast western actors in the roles during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (purge)?
Ye Wenjie is the only asian main characters that are completely true to the books and casted accordingly.
Jin Cheng and Da Shi (replaces Cheng Xin) are the other Asian casted main characters. The rest of the main. Cast ist European/American
Da Shi was not British in the book lmao wtf
Yes. That part is set in Nebraska now.
Their version has a communist driven purge mass murdering artists and academics in Nebraska ?!
No. That person is messing with you.
The China stuff in the past still happens in China.
The present day stuff is a bunch of diff races now, not just Chinese.
who said everybody is completely silent? nobody in the states aside from sci Fi nerds knew about 3 body until now. and for all the Chinese people I've asked, myself included, who read the book before the show came out are pissed they replaced the Chinese hero characters with not Chinese people and made all the Chinese people the bad guys. it's fucked and not a correct comparison here...
Yeah Tom cruise can play a samurai, but this is bad?
Tom Cruise wasn't the last Samurai.
Ken Watanabe was the last Samurai. Or maybe the group of Samurai, since it can be singular or plural. Either way it wasn't Middle Tooth Cruise.
The official translation to Spanish made it clear it's singular (El último samurái)
Similar thing happened with "the last Jedi", some even freaked out that out counted as a spoiler.
Middle tooth cruise >.<
He's not a samurai, but Japan needed a white guy to tell them that samurai were an important part of their historical tradition, otherwise they might have forgotten.
Just to clarify to anyone who hasn’t watched it, his character was NOT Japanese, he was an American soldier brought to Japan to train Japanese recruits before being captured by the samurai and slowly learning their ways. I shouldn’t even NEED to say that, but we apparently live in a world where characters having their ethnicities swapped with no explanation or forethought or deeper meaning is just a matter of course now.
Thanks for the historical context - I knew most of it personally but not the name of the actor who played Juliet first.
It's nice to know that kind of information has survived so far. History is weird like that.
Hey! Robby was white! That’s the most important part. Whatever, the right is fucking stupid.
Well done with the historical reference.
I understand what you're going for, but it was likely played by a male because women weren't allowed to perform.
I understand what you’re going for, but it was likely played by a male because women weren’t allowed to perform.
You're almost there. Keep going!
To quote another Shakespeare play (The Tempest): "What's past is prologue".
The reason the black actor for Juliet is receiving threats is because they don't want her to be allowed to perform. So those historically that were so intolerant of a woman performing on stage that we see as silly and backwards are equally silly and backwards as today's racists threatening this modern day actor for the part of Juliet.
to be honest, I think you're incorrect here and your comparison isn't accurate here. a true comparison to men playing an Italian Juliet would be the black actors in questions playing italian people that are specifically written in the source material... which is weird and color washing. no ambiguous "they're a fairy tale people" stuff. if they plan on keeping to the feel and historical context of the play (which I can't tell from their marketing materials), then it's honestly super weird for black actors to play white people. are they going to use Italian accents? are they all Moores now? or is canon thrown out the window? if so, why not just make a Lion King type production where it's based on the Shakespeare story instead of just play itself? why can't production companies create original, creative roles for bipoc actors that are memorable and put them in a spotlight in a positive way instead of doing this played out controversial marketing shit that companies KNOW will stir up trouble to generate interest on their productions.
to be honest, I think you’re incorrect here and your comparison isn’t accurate here. a true comparison to men playing an Italian Juliet would be the black actors in questions playing italian people that are specifically written in the source material…
You're welcome to your opinion of course. I think you're trying very hard to make the "Italian" part relevant, for Romeo and Juliet, but it feels like thats an argument grasping at straws. Yes, the story is about Italians, but the original actor in 1597, Robert Goffe, wasn't Italian either he was English source. No one, except you, has trying to make any actors playing this role across the last 450 years contingent on being Italian.
then it’s honestly super weird for black actors to play white people.
Oh? I think you should really employ some self reflection why you arrived at that statement. Why does that make you so uncomfortable? These are actors standing on a stage, wearing costumes, speaking monologues to an audience, and some characters pretending to fight and stab each other to death. The sets are made from cardboard, plywood, and the cheapest paint they can buy. Why is it you can suspend disbelief around all those other things that don't match reality, but when it comes to the skin color of an actor, its a bridge too far?
When the actor Leslie Lloyd Odom Jr, a black actor, played the role of the actual historical figure Aaron Burr in the original Broadway production of Hamilton, were you equally uncomfortable? Were you broken out of the story of Hamilton's life and unable immerse yourself in history because a black man was acting the part of a historically white charactor? If so, I would have figured it would have been the awesome hip-hop numbers that weren't quite period correct, not the color of skin of an actor.
why can’t production companies create original, creative roles for bipoc actors that are memorable and put them in a spotlight in a positive way
That's is already happening.
instead of doing this played out controversial marketing shit that companies KNOW will stir up trouble to generate interest on their productions.
I don't think they're only casting these actors to stir up controversy. Lloyd Odom Jr was amazing in Hamilton! Nothing about the color of his skin subtracted from my enjoyment of the play. He's a powerhouse of an actor that absolutely nailed that role.
Why do you feel we, as a society, should be gatekeeping the last 500+ years of western storytelling to only white actors? You would stand before a room of 100 actors, perhaps 40 of them non-white and proclaim proudly "these hundreds of years of script are off limits to you, because you're not white"?
To your first point, English play, English actors. Europeans playing Europeans. not weird. very basic concept.
Why does that make you so uncomfortable?
because if it were the other way around for any other race, it would make me uncomfortable also. I don't want Europeans to be casted as Asian characters in a classic Asian story. or Europeans playing Africans in a classic African play. this would largely be considered white washing and is largely frowned upon.
Leslie Lloyd Odom Jr
You largely ignored my crucial statement that if the medium wants to keep the FEEL and historical context, then casting consideration is appropriate. if you make a historical rap musical, then the rules are different. clearly LMM was not trying to capture the FEEL of that historical period.
Even if you don't think this is controversial marketing, it still is. it's causing a stir and we're talking about it. when it comes out, well both at least check it out probably in some form or another.
You would stand before a room of 100 actors, perhaps 40 of them non-white and proclaim proudly "these hundreds of years of script are off limits to you, because you're not white"?
yes, if I'm a casting director trying to cast actors for authentic white characters.