I know it's the wrong play, but something IS rotten in the state of Denmark... or at least in the county of Dorset.... or in the world of the AUCB School of Performance productions.
I spoke to my tutor yesterday who informed me that the director was having second-thoughts about setting it in India as he is worried it may come across offensive and racist... I do not think this will be the case as I have taken a lot of time and care in making sure nothing could be construed as offensive: blind casting (people are selected for the roles purely on their acting ability- nationality has nothing to do with it and under no circumstances should any of the cast put-on 'Indian accents' or attempt to change their skin colour- the costumes alone should speak for their nationality), also when designating the nationalities to each character I made sure that the dynamic could not be constued as offensive in anyway: nearly all the 'baddies' are British as are all the 'stupid' characters, so that no-one could turn round and go "you are misrepresenting Indians in a negative light and I find this offensive".
Furthermore, I think that shying away from any play with a context from another culture purely because the acting course doesn't have the 'correct' nationalities to fit it, is much worse and more offensive, as by doing that you are ruling out so many foreign plays and playwrights and are actually IGNORING the existence of other cultures. I don't think it would be a problem if there was a 'Much Ado' production in India and they were setting it in England- or even taking it out of its original context and setting it in America- no-one would take offense to that. Speaking of which, where exactly do you draw the line? So you say that you wouldn't want to set the production in India because you wouldn't want English students posing as Indians in case it caused offense... what about Cementville? That's set in America, and no doubt the actors will be encouraged to put on accents, yet is there a taboo around it? Do people worry about offending any Americans in the audience? No, despite he fact that the play is much more potentially offensive and racy.
One could argue that Cementville was written as a play set in the USA whereas I have chosen to take 'Much Ado' out of its original context and set it in India for no reason other than for window-dressing. However, that is not the case, I have always had strong and just reason for wanting to set it in India at this particular time. It's not like I just thought 'ooh, India= pretty fabrics, that'll be nice for costumes'- there was a lot of careful thought about why not to set it in it's original context, why not bring it completely up to date, and why set it in the British Raj- why set it in India. And I think if anything, the fact that the RSC have also decided to do a production set in India, shows that I have just cause to thik this as an appropriate setting.
ANYWAY, the director was so excited initially about this context, that when I meet with him today I'm really hoping it might just be a case of talking through his concerns and showing him that I've addressed them, hopefully putting him at ease and making him fall in love with the concept all over again. However, the bottom line is that he is the director and if he really doesn't want to set it in India anymore, then I shall have to be flexible and agree to start all over again... even if it does mean having wasted 5 weeks of my life!
So fingers-crossed. He seemed perfectly nice and reasonable when we last met, so I'm hoping we can come to some sort of compromise.
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