There aren’t many things found in a car park that cause as much turmoil in British theatre as King Richard III. The return of the villainous king to the Globe this Summer has led actors and unions to call for a re-casting. Michelle Terry, the artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, will play Richard III this season with no intention of portraying the character with a disability. In response, the Disabled Artists Alliance (DAA) sent the Globe an open letter with over 150 signatories calling for Terry to step back from the role.
The casting of Terry seems particularly painful given the Globe’s previous reputation as a leader in creating an inclusive and diverse environment on and off-stage. The Globe already has a roster of disabled actors (such as Francesca Mills who played Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream last summer) who many feel would have been a better fit for the role. Following Athena Stevens’s decision to sue the Globe for alleged discrimination based on her disability, is the Globe dropping the ball for disabled actors and artists?
“To see the Globe announce this casting within this production is shocking. His disabled identity is integral to all corners of the script,” said the DAA’s first open letter. Since the DAA sent this open letter to the Globe at the end of January, the alliance’s membership has grown from 186 individual and collective members to 292.
Richard III is an iconic disabled character in a play that will certainly be put on at the Globe again over the next few years. The Globe’s and Terry’s statements particularly ruffled feathers at the claim that “opportunity will come around again” for the disabled actors who feel overlooked by the casting of Terry.
“Disabled actors are constantly fighting for incidental casting. To not even have this role that specifically has a disability is really disappointing,” said Natalie Amber, actor, chair of the Dead and Disabled Members Committee of Equity, the leading performing arts and entertainment trade union in the UK, and signatory of the DAA open letter.
“We don’t need to be promised disabled roles the next time round. We don’t need to be patronised, we need opportunities when they’re here with us now,” said Amber.
A non-disabled actor playing Richard III has happened before, even if it goes against the grain of the most recent productions which have featured disabled actors playing the protagonist such as Mat Fraser in 2017 and Katy Sullivan this year in the US. What is the line between subverting iconic works of theatre and inauthentic casting that Equity argues against?
Joshua Parker, an actor who recently played Richard III in Fulham, said: “I don’t think you have to have those exact characteristics to do a good job with the role. But it’s an understanding and adaptability towards the world that able-bodied people might not have that disabled people must have.”
Parker’s own disabilities informed his interpretation of Richard III. Rather than seeing a hyper-villainous tyrant, he sees a social climber that “is responding to what he’s being given […] he’s just doing whatever it takes to rise above a society that mistreats him”. In this way, there is a level of consciousness about the treatment of disabled bodies that able-bodied empathy might not rise to so naturally.
This reading of Richard III that is grounded in an awareness of how disability is treated in the wider world harkens back to the writings of Francis Bacon. Questions of authenticity and lived experience do not seem to have been a priority in Elizabethan theatre but it is worth asking ourselves what relevance authentic casting has in today’s theatre.
“Our interest in lived experience in plays like Richard III asks the question of whether an actor with a disability might authenticate the emotional landscape of the play, which might be harder or even impossible for an able-bodied person to achieve,” said Dr Jakub Boguszak, lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Theatre at the University of Southampton.
“At this point in time, about 20% of Britain’s population has some form of disability, yet only 2% of roles on-screen have disabilities, there are clear issues that need to be address,” said Boguszak.
Of the 2% of roles that include characters with disabilities, it is not clear what proportion of these roles are played by actors with disabilities considering the many forms disability can manifest.
However, from the DAA open letter to those on-stage, the root of the disappointment with the casting of Michelle Terry is the underrepresentation of disability that the decision mirrors in the British theatre industry.
“What’s angered me the most is that Terry and the Globe itself could have used this blunder as a tool to widen the discussion around disability in theatre, but that clearly hasn’t happened. What the Globe does and the decisions it makes shapes national conversations about theatre and who gets to participate,” said Amber.
Let alone what happens on-stage, there are still many barriers for disabled people working in the theatre industry, with the amount of disabled people involved in arts organisations in the UK being 6%. The effects of the pandemic also led to two thirds of disabled theatre staff considering leaving creatives industries altogether.
“Whatever comes of this, the conversation has to go deeper than who plays Richard III this summer. From the actors on-stage to directors and managers off-stage, this is something that needs addressing,” said Boguszak.
Words by Elizabeth Sorrell
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