Last night, I had the opportunity to (bear with me) be in the room where it happened: the Olivier Awards, the UK’s most prodigious theatre awards ceremony. This was my final thought from my evening of live-blogging:
‘I swung from deep-seated hatred at the transphobic, racist audience to Euphoria at the incredible “box-ticker” talent and hope that these actions will shit on the words of people whose names do not deserve my # count.’ - @zeus_japonicus
So, here’s a blow-by-blow account of why, despite our industry being seen as a more ‘progressive’ arts industry, we need to do so, so much better.
Two days before the Oliviers, Quentin Letts, a theatre critic for the Daily Mail, reviewed the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Fantastic Follies of Mrs. Rich. For those not in the know, the Daily Mail is known for its insipid list of –phobias and –isms, not-so-subtly masked under the guise of ‘protecting the British everyman’ from Political Correctness.
Letts joined a long line of predecessors in ‘asking’ whether the casting of a black actor, Leo Wringer, was because of “tick inclusiveness boxes”, and whether the RSC’s “core business is drama or social engineering”. The RSC responded by calling Letts out for what this was: “a blatantly racist attitude to a member of the cast”, and an ‘ugly and prejudiced commentary”. Letts then posted on twitter: ‘Am told RSC has attacked me for racism. Oh come off it. I was merely questioning a clumsy colour-blind casting policy which itself patronises actors and audiences.’
Quentin Letts’ commentary is a prime example of what every ‘minority’ in the theatre industry knows as The Game. Are you a Letts, worried that your job is being stolen by someone who ticks a box you don’t? Well let me tell you something more terrifying: us minorities have no legs to stand on when it comes to quantifying our own self-worth. Because of this on-going fearmongering around ‘diversity quotas’ and equal opportunities forms, it’s hard not to think you’ve only got the job / placement / role because you ticked a box. Not because of your ability, nor because of your natural shine in interviews, but because you are, as I am, a multi-ticker: a mixed-race transgender person with a disability. But if that’s what people are looking for, should I not play up my identity? Or should I keep it under wraps lest they be wanting to hire a shiny white boy? No matter what, we do not win.
‘Asking’ questions like Letts does completely undermines every achievement of people like Leo Wringer– it is the equivalent of asking a woman who she slept with to become successful – the idea that people can’t have the achievements of a cisgender white man without some dastardly underhandedness. This feeds into the larger conversation about positive discrimination / affirmative action, but those who are against these schemes are, in no doubts, wilfully ignoring this country’s long history of institutional structural inequality and this is malicious, racist in sheep’s clothing bullshit.
There came a petition to ban Letts from reviews, but as @FirdosWrites says:
‘Is Quentin Letts the only racist White man associated with theatre we’re going to hold to account this year? Let’s face it, he isn’t as damaging as the ones who run the institutions. The outrage is a useful distraction/release of guilt for some.’
And that’s just it: Letts isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of theatre critics. I hadn’t even heard of him until Friday. The calling out of his behaviour is deserved, but he’s not the only one who needs to be held accountable for his actions, and the Olivier Awards served as a good a place as any to start.
Awards ceremonies tend to have a recent-politics theme to them: this year, the Oliviers chose #TimesUp. The problem I found as the evening ran on was that the effort put in to the message was grossly tokenistic – the literal and metaphorical Time’s Up pin-badge handed to guests an easy out of criticising one’s own actions while claiming ‘support’.
There’s a term for this: White Feminism, a form of feminism that fails to address distinct forms of oppression by those of minority groups and people lacking certain privileges. You cannot say that cisgender, able-bodied white females are underrepresented in the theatre industry. You just can’t. Yet there was absolutely zero support last night from these women for what has come to light during the rise of the Time’s Up movement: women get paid less than men, women of colour get paid less than white women. In her brief time on stage as an award-giver, Meera Syal mentioned the necessity of celebrating diversity, the only host to do so.
Time’s Up is also about harassment. It’s about making sure people feel comfortable talking about harassment in their environments, so that issues that go undocumented get seen. Here’s what I experienced last night by people wearing their shiny new Time’s Up badges: harassment.
I am transgender. I wore a suit to the Olivier’s last night, and I looked like a sixteen year old boy in his first suit. That’s fine, I lean into it. Older ladies are often taken to talking to me in that I-could-pinch-your-cheeks way, which is why it becomes real obvious real fast when there’s a shift in perception.
I drank a lot of water, I needed to pee in the interval. I managed to time it so well that there was no queue, but the threat of imminent crowds meant I had a minute, max, to decide which toilet to use before I was stuck in a 10 minute line. In a situation like this, I usually default to the ‘accessible’ toilet – but even this option wasn’t available to me. Male or female. I’m in a suit, wearing a binder, and look like a boy. But I’ve been in male toilets that are only urinals, no stalls. I cannot exit the male and enter the female. I went to the woman’s toilets, following a lady who opened the door for me. She had the typical ‘you’re using the wrong door’ expression, but I powered through. By the time I had washed my hands, the queue went through the door and wrapped around the corridor. There was a distinct lack of I’d-pinch-your-cheeks smiles as I walked out that door. It’s hard to quantify the atmosphere without seeming sensitive, but it’s similar to that palpable feeling of unrest and discomfort that people of colour can feel when in an unwelcome environment.
I’ve had women tell me this week that they’d ducked into the male toilet because the line for the women’s was too long, and how they’d felt uncomfortable in a way that is unquantifiable. How they’d felt like a target, or like there was a danger ever present. Not that they were attacked, or that they honestly thought they would be, but that the threat loomed.
By the time I’d returned to my seat, they had set the stage for the after-intermission showcase of Everybody’s Talking About Jaime. Ironic. It’s a musical about a British schoolboy Drag Queen, and the inspiration behind it had just walked the red carpet in an incredible dress. It’s a show about teenagers, self-acceptance and confidence, and it’s about Drag.
I tweeted: ‘TOILETS ARE SCARY! Hopefully everyone’s nicer after they see Jaime (but why should they because Drag is great but Trans is scary)’.
Because I have a bone to pick with Jaime. Though it is heartening to see more queer stories on stage (and with a class of schoolkids that really does represent a class of 2018), Jaime is not so dissimilar to Kinky Boots crossed with Billy Elliot: a working-class boy with a daddy complex discovers his feminine side and comes to accept his identity. It also contains the same transphobia that thrives in Drag communities, most recently seen exhibited by Ru Paul. Jaime perpetuates the harmful idea that ‘a man in a dress is to be laughed at’, while a Queen should be respected. While intended to promote and enlighten the protagonist, it undermines the movements to un-gender clothes (women wear trousers, why can’t men wear dresses?) as well as placing the responsibility of whether or not one is harassed on the victim, not on the harasser.
Both Kinky Boots and Everybody’s Talking About Jaime contain lines that distance their protagonists from transgender women (and rightfully so, because though there is some crossover, one is not the other.) But if even the ‘queer’ shows on London’s West End don’t do something to address problems the trans community faces, where are we left? In Kinky Boots, the audience is addressed as ‘Ladies, and Gentlemen and those who have yet to decide’, harmful towards non-binary audience members. The toilets are gendered. Against, at the Almeida, had a non-binary character. At the time, the toilets were gendered, and the audience was referred to as ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’.
An alternate movement to Time’s Up that was also mentioned last night was 5050 2020 – or, Equity in Hollywood by the year 2020. This movement (though catchy) rankles me because it ignores the existence of non-binary / gender non-conforming people. We have not flown under the radar this last year: Asia Kate Dillon was asked whether they wanted to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor or Actress at the 2017 Emmys, The Guardian did a feature on us this March for Trans Day of Visibility, and we’re in the collective social conscious enough to be mocked and parodied in every newspaper and feature film critiquing the ‘liberal left’.
Yet, despite it all, the majority of London’s theatres remain gendered. Toilets and announcements, easily remedied, are not. This actively pre-empts harassment towards transgender and non-binary audience members.
‘now that we don’t have to worry about people of colour again (phew) loving the qWhite [sic] interesting nominations / wins’
By this point, I had become relatively disenfranchised with the ceremony, and had begun thinking about the judge from the Oscars, who came out as saying that she voted against Get Out because she was a racist. It made me think about how I didn’t know who made up the Oliviers panel. It made me think about how people who sit on Jurys are filtered on whether they’re going to vote because they’ve got a -phobia. The overwhelming majority of winners were white and male.
Then 48 cast members of 42nd Street came out in their bright-white costumes and did a dance and I thought about the gaping mouth of whiteness in front of me. I was sat too far away to see properly, so I did a brief check of the cast list on their website. I count 3/50 people of colour. Is this because Hamilton has every singing, dancing ensemble member in London in its cast? Is this because white ensemble members have been kicked out of audition rooms and seek haven in the one place that will accept them? Three out of fifty.
The audience was more than ready to cheer for the performances (especially Sheila Atim of The Girl from the North Country, who got a standing ovation at her magnificent performance,) but in the section I was sat, there were murmurs of dissent around both her and Giles Terera’s speeches regarding ‘diversity’ not being a box-ticking exercise (direct jabs at Mr. Letts.) I wish I was joking when I say that I was one of the only people of colour in my section, other than the literal ensemble cast of Hamilton.
The lack of support from my surrounding audience members reminded me of another recent Daily Mail review, this time from one Stephen Glover, who on reviewing Afua Hirsch’s new book, BRIT(ish), wrote “Couldn’t Afua Hirsch summon a smidgen of gratitude?”, claiming the author “threatened racial harmony” with her commentary.
As @HadleyFreeman so deftly translated: “Why can’t these uppity black folks show some appreciation we let them live their lives that they worked really hard for?”
Because while this audience was comfortable applauding Atim’s stunning voice and congratulating her on her award, they could not, and would not stoop to supporting her message on diversity, and the importance of critiquing the industry as a whole. Again, this is pin-badge support. We will applaud that you (the individual) have managed to talent your way to the top, but we will not address the industry that prevents others like you from succeeding.
‘ammm iiii the oonnnllyy onnneee noticing that the whhhiiittteee perrrsoonn from hammmmm woooonnnn foooor eeeiiighhhtt minnnsss oonnn sttaagggeee’
When Michael Jibson won Best Supporting role in a musical, he mentioned in his speech that he’s only on stage for eight minutes. He beat out his two co-stars, Jason Pennycooke and Cleve September (Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson and John Laurens/Philip Hamilton). While King George is loveable and has a catchy tune, Pennycooke has Guns & Ships and September dies twice, and is able to make you cry both times.
And this is just the winners / nominated. Barber Shop Chronicles, also at the National Theatre this year, wasn’t nominated despite rave reviews and an upcoming US tour.
And, if this doesn’t sum up what the event made me feel, I’ve yet to mention the evening’s host, Catherine Tate, whose first joke pre-broadcast undermined the Time’s Up movement by making light of male sexual assault victims, joking about how hard it is keeping up with “what you’re allowed to say these days!”
If your ‘joke’ comes out like something Harvey Weinstein might say, maybe it’s time to consider whether it’s super funny in the first place.
So, what are we going to do about it? Well Improbably Theatre runs an annual conference on ‘what to do about Theatre and the Performing Arts’ called Devoted & Disgruntled, and ever year they publish reports of each session. I’ve written a report on every aspect of the above: how we can make the theatre less toxic re: racism, sexism and transphobia, and much more.
It would be easy to be dispirited by “The Industry”, with its centuries of history in London, apparently not easily changed, but there is an underground of people working diligently to address what needs to be addressed. Where and when change happens relies solely on the theatre houses: on what is commissioned, who is paid, who is cast and who is promoted. There is work out there that deserves Olivier Awards, stuff that’s as representative of London as Hamiltonand Jaime and Five Guys named Moe and more so besides. Now, it has to be seen.
