Whose Daring Deeds Make Great Theatre?
Inspired by Cancer, the 10th House, Representation, and Presence
Zero to Hero
by Alan Menken (Composer) and David Zipple (Lyricist)
Who put the glad in gladiator? / Hercules. / Whose daring deeds make great theatre? Hercules. / Is he bold? / No one’s braver. / Is he sweet? / Our favorite flavor. / Hercules! Hercules! Hercules! / Bless my soul, Herc is on a roll. / Undeafeated. / Riding high / and the nicest guy. / Not conceited. / He was anothin’ (a zero zero ) / now he’s a hot shot (he’s a hero). / He hit the heights at break neck speed. / From Zero to Hero. / Herc is a hero. / Now he’s a hero. / OH! / Yes, indeed.
Note: Whenever I feel defeated, I listen to Michael Kore’s tune until I feel significantly less beaten.
I Can’t Be Your Hero, Baby:
While driving down the I-5 south, I revisited “I Can Be Your Hero, Baby” an episode from the podcast Food 4 Thot. There Tommy “Teebs” Pico, Fran Tirado, Denne Michelle Norris, and Joseph Osmundson discussed the merits and pitfalls of heroism. I adored their conversation which ranged from Marvel movies to epic Greek poetry to AIDS activism. Moved by their entertaining and informative banter, I returned to Joe Osmondsund’s essay collection Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between. On his soft ardent pages, he names AIDS activists like Peter Staley, Sarah Schulman, and David Barr. They were regaled as heroes but consequently denied the right to properly grieve. “Heroes aren’t people,” Osmundson writes, “and if all your stories of change being made rely on heroes, you can’t imagine you can make change for yourself.” Held to incredibly high standards, heroes are robbed of the mirth and mire of being. And so are you.
I Can’t Be Your Villian, Baby:
I walked down the hall of my one-bedroom apartment and flipped on the light. My floor lamp, which hid in the corner, flooded the living room with a calm and telling glow. An olive chaise with a canary throw begged to be sat upon. Even the coffee table proffered a glass of white wine. I set my keys down and obliged the welcoming furniture. To the right of the stemless glass, a harrowing memoir slept, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. I took a generous sip and flipped it open to a dog-eared page. “Dream House as Queer Villainy.”
Already buzzed, my eyes waded through the first few paragraphs until a single sentence floated to the top of my attention. “We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism, because when we refuse wrongdoing as a possibility for a group of people, we refuse their humanity.” I lifted the glass high into the air before taking an agreeable swig. As I brought the glass back to the table, a splash of pinot fell onto the carpet. The dry and thirsty shag didn’t seem to mind. “Queers,” I read aloud, “——real-life ones——don’t deserve representation, protection, and rights because they are morally pure or upright as people. They deserve those things because they are human beings, and that is enough.” A single unexpected tear fell down my hot face. I gazed at the toy-sized figurines scattered across my tabletop. Ursula from The Little Mermaid. HIM from the Powerpuff Girls. Scar from The Lion King. Even Miss Trunchabull from Matilda was smirking just for me. A lineage of queer-coded misfits.
I read to the end of the chapter: "So bring on the queer villains, the queer heroes, the queer sidekicks, and secondary characters and protagonists and extras. They can be a complete cast unto themselves. Let them have agency, and then let them go.” I turned the book over and stumbled toward the lamp. It was a miracle I didn’t fall face-first into the carpet. I pulled the cord and turned the lamp off. The night sky flew through the window and covered the room in plush moonlight. Happily, I strolled back to the couch, plopped down, and fell asleep.
I Get A Kick Outta You:
My origin story isn’t particularly noteworthy or memorable. To put it plainly, I was at the right place at the right time. Sometime in the Spring of 2010, I attended an audition (and later callback) for Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. I walked into the room shaking; I wasn’t convinced I deserved to be there. In true E.Y. fashion, I showed up, let fearlessness be my guide, and went home. I lived with my mother at the time and she kept asking if I thought I booked it. My uncertainty told her I wasn’t sure. About a week or two later, the stage manager, Dana called me. “Hello, is this E.Y. Washington?” I was not accustomed to answering calls from a number I didn’t recognize. “If I am not mistaken, you called me. May I ask who is speaking?” I curtly replied. She laughed. “Dana. We met at callbacks. Truth be told, our first choice dropped and you are our second. Would you like to be in the ensemble of Anything Goes?” I didn’t hear anything but the last sentence and, in my youthful eagerness, said yes. I felt accomplished, meaningful even, a college student juggling an acting career. This is what dreams are made of.
Sadly, I have few, if any, joyful memories of the experience. I was treated as an oddity, an aberration, an exception to the rule. For years, I assumed I had earned my mistreatment. I was, after all, loud, inexperienced, and eager to please: an (allegedly) deadly combination: often described as “unprofessional.” Jon, the director/choreographer, acknowledged my talent but didn’t trust its timeliness. Debra, the dance captain, corralled my “unprofessional” behavior and encouraged mindfulness (which is to say silent attentiveness). Dana, the stage manager, was uninterested and unbothered. I felt distinctly alone.
Yvonne, the only other Black actor in the company, was my salvation. Dark-skinned, statuesque, and dangerously articulate, she commanded the room. Everything she did was deliberate and political.
I remember a particularly hilarious incident that occurred during a dress rehearsal. We were running the rather lengthy production number “Blow Gabriel Blow.” Jon had just finished yelling at another dancer for underperforming when he turned his sights on Yvonne. She hadn’t been singing. “Yvonne,” he barked, “I don’t hear you singing.” She whipped her head forward, opened her mouth, and violently coughed. He stared at her in abject wonder. “I’m sick,” she spat. Jon’s jaw dropped as Yvonne turned and walked right off the stage. Dana rose to her feet and sent us a ten-minute break. I found Yvonne and asked if she wanted a cough drop. She looked at me in loving disbelief. “I’m sick of these people and I’m sick of being in their stories,” she clarified. Back then I didn’t really understand what she meant. Now, thirteen years later, I do.
You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught:
After Anything Goes concluded its run, I went into a bit of a panic. I didn’t feel accomplished anymore. Dana’s words grew louder and took on a different shape in my ears: “second choice,” became “second rate,” which became “second best.” I was doomed to run the hamster wheel of inadequacy wherever I went. If word got out, I wouldn’t be hired by anyone ever again. There was a production of Bob Fosse’s Chicago that was set to start in the winter. I made an audition appointment but didn’t show up; my confidence was pulverized. So, I moped around the house and missed a few classes at school. As finals were steadily approaching, I caught wind of an audition for Roger and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. I was reluctant but admittedly more hopeful. Their Pulitzer-winning gem was written for singers and singing was my wheelhouse. So, despite my deep inadequacy, I went to the audition and left with a contract. I was, in fact, their first choice which made me feel exceptional and talented.
When the production opened, I was mesmerized by the pomp and circumstance. They converted the lobby into a ballroom fit for an exorbitant gala. There were tables of unrecognizable food, bottles of unrecognizable (read: wildly expensive) wine, and two Broadway dames. Mitzi Gaynor and Debbie Reynolds were invited to attend the performance and give a toast at the opening night party. I couldn’t tell you a single word they said. I was happy to be there in the presence of legends. After the party officially ended, a cast member decided to throw an unofficial afterparty at their villa. I went and had my first sip of alcohol (vodka sprite). Matt, a friend and castmate, asked if I had alcohol prior to that particular moment. I said I hadn’t and he laughed. As the night progressed, we spoke candidly about the show. “It’s terrible,” he said under his breath. I looked at him with the utmost confusion. “It’s so bad: wrinkles in the backdrops, comically bright costumes. I feel like I’m in the circus.” I choked back a laugh; he wasn’t wrong. “I wonder what the press will say,” I said casually before sipping my drink. His eyes grew wide. “They’ll eat us alive.”
He was right. They did eat us alive, but not for the reasons you think. A staff writer, employed by a local newspaper, spoke poorly of our abridged rendition. South Pacific is considered an American classic because it boldly denounced racism in the late 1940s. While its subjects (and subjectivities) are Pacific Islanders, the musical theater duo was commenting on America and her unending relationship with racism. “You have to be carefully taught,” a tune from the show, is a shining example. The staff writer took note of me, a Black sailor, carelessly galavanting with white sailors and had choice words to say. They implied it was a distracting if not antithetical casting choice. Josh, the director/producer, was outraged. He said something akin to “I don’t hire based on color. I hire based on talent.” He dragged them on social media for the entire theatre community to see. Again, they only took note. I remember sending him an email, thanking him for being my hero. In retrospect, I regret being so young and so desperate to be saved.
South Pacific ended its occupation in late March and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown began shortly after. I played Snoopy the dog, not Schroeder (reimagined by Stanley Wayne Mathis, a Black actor, in the 1998 revival). Admittedly, I couldn’t sing his role well. It was written for a tenor and I was a baritone with a rich but limited range. I was happy to be there and grateful to be featured in an ensemble of five instead of twenty. It was rewarding work, tiring work. I played a puppy with an overactive imagination. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown ended and I was presented with an unexpected opportunity. I left the country and didn’t return again until a year and some change later. When I came back, guess what show I was going to audition for? Another production of Anything Goes.
The Gospel Truth
by Alan Menken (Composer) and David Zipple (Lyricist)
Narrator: You go girls . . . / Calliope: We are the muses / Goddesses of the arts / and proclaimers of heroes. / Terpsichore: Heroes like Hercules. / Thalia: Honey, you mean Hunk-ules! / Woohoo, I’d like to make some sweet music with him—— / Calliope: Our story actually begins long before Hercules / many eons ago.
Note: In 1945, shortly after the word superhero came into the English language, Joseph Campbell wrote his epic A Hero With A Thousand Faces. Having studied a wide variety of myths and legends, he noticed a narrative framework and described it as the monomyth or hero’s journey. His seventeen-step roadmap is a problematic product of its time. Like the writer Robert Jewett, I believe it encourages American Main Character Syndrome.
Playing Around in the Dark:
John Berger, the author of the novel G., wrote “never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one.” Fifteen words have never convicted me deeper. After reading and rereading the lecture “Black Matters” by Toni Morrison, I feel obligated to tell you a neglected story. I hope to be a muse to you, goddess of the arts, and proclaimer of unsung heroes. The quoted words are from “Black Matters,” an essay, from Morrison’s Playing in the Dark.
Whose Daring Deeds Make Great Theatre:
As of late, there’s been a vehement witchhunt for racist and non-racist musical theater. It is a strange inquisition, spearheaded by well-meaning leftists, hell-bent on tidying up their implicating theatrical pasttime. Shows like Anything Goes (with Ching and Ling) or Thoroughly Modern Millie (with Ching Ho and Bung Fu) overflow with questionable depictions. What is the industry’s response? Erase and replace. In the 2016 revival of Anything Goes, Ching and Ling's names were changed to Spit and Dippy. And, after a fiery wave of controversy, Thoroughly Modern Millie is rarely produced. One replaced, the other erased.
There is, of course, the industry’s third response: reimagine. Its separate courses of action——the revival and the adaptation——have decorated the Great White Way for decades. Let’s take Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton for example. The playwright-lyricist-composer adapted Ron Chernow’s book, Alexander Hamilton, for the Broadway stage. Taking America’s bloody beginnings, he reimagined them with a colorblind palette. Lauded as a masterwork, the musical features Black actors portraying America’s founding fathers (read: historically documented slave owners).
Now, to be clear, I am not interested in passing judgment on any theatrical work based on the racial attitude of its theatre-maker(s). Here, good-bad dichotomies are not instructive, forgiving, or reliable. Good-bad can’t tell us the nuances behind why Miranda made his narrative choices. Good-bad can’t tell us who benefits from such apolitical (read: universal) theatrics. So, who can? Toni Morrison perhaps. Like her, I strive to “avert the critical gaze from the racial object to the racial subject; from the described and imagined to the describers and imaginers; from the serving to the served.” I hope, by doing so, we are encouraged to see and more importantly create critically.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, a white-passing describer and imaginer, did not create Hamilton critically. His characters——George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr——simultaneously represent American freedom and enslavement. So do Christopher Jackson, Daveed Diggs, Joshua Henry, Michael Luwoye, and Leslie Odom Jr. By depicting (those and many other) Black actors as America’s founding slavers, Miranda reified a bleak and unsettling truth: in America, only oppressors are free. Consequently, his devotion to representation is less than commendable because he lacks the devotion to presence. More on that later.
Let’s return to Anything Goes. How did Guy Bolton, P.G. Woodhouse, Howard Lindsey, and Russel Crouse——the writers of Anything Goes——shape the imagination of the American public?
On Chinese Matters:
In the late 19th century, New York City’s Chinatown upheld a slanderous reputation for gambling, prostitution, and overt opium use. White (well-to-do) Americans, led by tour guides, flooded into immigrant neighborhoods eager to see “how the other half lives.” Chinatown was no exception and entertained the joys of slumming tourism for half a century. Wealthy tourists frequented Chinese brothels and opium dens from the 1850s to the mid-1890s. Locals eventually introduced them to fake bars where performers reenacted sexual dalliances and pistol fights. Tongue-wagging voyeurs gawked and grinned, smoking fake opium joints, pettily rolled and sold by Chinatown’s finest. Theirs became a popular American pasttime.
Consequently, American xenophobia barked and the federal government yelped with the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924. The U.S. Border Patrol was created as a result. Their first assignment was twofold: to ban Asian immigrants from entering the country and to maintain a 165,000 immigrant quota within. Additionally, de facto segregation excluded Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Asian Indian individuals from participating in (White) American life. They weren’t permitted to attend public schools, enter the workforce, or live in decent neighborhoods. Then, to make matters exceptionally worse, the American government withheld naturalization rights. They would be treated worse than second-class citizens for quite some time.
Across the Atlantic, in the mid-20th century, China had erupted into a civil war: Nationalists were vehemently pitted against Communists. An expedient Japan annexed Manchuria for its raw materials and began its campaign to imperialize China. Eager to dominate tariff rates, the United States aided China by concretizing its sovereignty. Japan had already captured Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and of course Nanjing———the site of the infamous Rape of Nanjing. As armies swept through China, crashing into her people, American missionaries stopped preaching their imperialist gospel and established their own educational centers. The result? A new secularized China.
Anything Goes, The Quintessential Musical Comedy:
Anything Goes premiered in 1934 and ran for a total of 420 performances making it the longest-running Broadway show during the Great Depression. Since then it has received a number of revivals: once in 1967, again in 1987, once more in 2011, and another in 2022. Over the span of eighty-eight years, Ching and Ling would become Luke and John, still depicted as Chinese. Then, in 2011, they would be revived as two white street toughs named Spit and Dippy. They were erased, replaced, and reimagined in an attempt to be less racist. Oddly enough, the show’s earliest revivals (the 1967 and 1987 renditions) are the ones most frequently produced by high school, community, and regional theatres. Guy Bolton, P.G. Woodhouse, Howard Lindsey, and Russel Crouse’s oldest imaginings are accessible, alive, and well.
Art (Nearly) Imitating Life:
At the beginning of the first act, the audience is introduced to the rich and infamous as they board the S.S. American. Ching and Ling accompany Bishop Henry T. Dobson and board the ship as his converts. A reporter and photographer stop the minister for an interview. He boasts about his religious credentials and the reporter exclaims that theirs is a “swell story for the Chinese edition” of their paper. Ching and Ling remain silent. Lucy Sante, trans historian and author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, demonstrates that American journalists stoked xenophobic flames by overdramatizing the differences between Americans and Chinese immigrants. Their depictions of the morally deprived, job-stealing foreigner were vividly fictive. Soon after the interview, everyone exits. Dobson reenters and runs into Moonface Martin, a stowaway dressed as a minister. Their conversation is farcical and brief. It ends with Dobson brandishing an “oh’la, chin-chow, arigatow” before being apprehended by the FBI. They mistake Dobson for Moonface leaving Ching and Ling in the criminal’s care.
Moonface, Ching, and Ling aren’t seen together again until the end of the first act. The Pursuer caught the Chinese duo gambling in the third class and threatened to have them arrested. Moonface asks to speak to them alone and the Pursuer obliges. This is the first time the Christian coverts speak. “Where’s the Bishop,” Ching asks. Moonface tells them he’s stepped out. Ching replies, “Biss Boss Cap’en spoi’m game . . . take away cards.” Moonface chides them saying gambling is a loser’s game. “We no lose,” Ling responds, “we win! three hundred dollars.” Moonface challenges them to a game of dice and loses. “Darn clever people,” Moonface remarks, “these Chinese.” Ching and Ling return to the third class taking the dice with them. In his essay, From Vice District to Tourist Attraction, professor Ivan Light explores Chinatown’s ascent from moral depravity to cultural touchstone. Like Sante, Light condemns the racist moralistic cries of outrage. In New York, opium use and prostitution weren’t nearly as prevalent as the press suggested. Gambling was the most pressing problem: segregated from one another, white and Chinese patrons crowded the craps tables equally.
And now, a fifteen-minute intermission.
Not long after the downbeat of the second act, Moonface and his pal Billy Crocker reveal their true identities: Public Enemy Number 13 and a Lovestruck Stowaway. They are immediately imprisoned with two additional inmates. After beating the entire third class in a game of craps, the Pursuer imprisons Ching and Ling with the intent to deport them in two hours’ time. Keep in mind: after WWI, U.S. Congress banned many immigrants from entering the country. Luxury cruiseliners consequently lost immigrants as their biggest customer base and had to remodel their third (or steerage) class for the passenger of modest means. Ching and Ling, then, would have been taking money from poor Americans. Moonface proudly commends them before being interrupted by a visitor.
Hope Harcourt pleads with Crocker asking him to disrupt her arranged wedding. Crocker asks for Moonface’s help and Moonface assists. “Would you gentlemen mind standing up?” Billy deviously asks. Ching and Ling rise to their feet. “Mine fits,” Billy says to Moonface, “try yours.” Moonface comments that the coat fits fine, but the pants will choke him. He then proceeds to challenge Ching and Ling to a game of strip poker. Instead of money, they play for pants. No strangers to distractions and sleights of hand, Moonface and Crocker shamelessly cheat and win the game. “Calling all pants! Calling all pants! Calling all pants!” is the winning cry Moonface shouts as he and Crocker escape impersonating Ching and Ling.
That is the end of the show for them, the end of the second act.
Representation vs. Presence and the White Imagination:
Representation is a double-edged sword. Terrified of cancellation, theaters and theater-makers dazzle audiences with colorfully diverse casts. They avoid being lacerated and are hailed as storytelling heroes. “Look,” they triumphantly cry, “we’re not racist!” It is a careless anxiety-driven practice that proves itself insidious. If theatre-makers are going to change the world with stories, they need to stop myth-making (i.e. colorblind casting) for representation's sake. Think of Anything Goes and its writers. They did not critically acknowledge the Asian actor’s personhood (read: presence) in their own narrative. Ching and Ling were plucked from their cultural context (read: reality), then shoved into a strange (read: white) new narrative. The house lights came up and they were expected to look natural. The pair were anything but natural and by no fault of their own. Dripping in narrative awkwardness, Ching and Ling’s presence shed light on the monster that lurks deep inside the white imagination: fear of losing supremacy. Whether evading the Gospel or rolling dice for American earnings, they were engaged in an eyebrow-raising power struggle, an eyebrow-raising power struggle they were destined to lose. It turns out Anything Goes if and only if you are a (white) American.
Ironically, the last two times I did the show, Ching and Ling were played by non-Asian actors. Now, in the most recent production I booked, they won’t be there at all. Erase-replace-and-reimagine, a white supremacist practice, distorts reality and weakens the structural integrity of the narrative. It seeks to create a false sense of normalcy and more importantly a false sense of justice. “Look,” the heroes triumphantly shout, “we cast [insert marginalized identity] in [insert historically all-white musical]!” At this point in time, I can only laugh. Myth-making will not and cannot solve white supremacy nor heal its effect on the American imagination. Myth-busting may be our only chance at redemption. Fuck being a hero. Be an honest storyteller instead and keep presence at the forefront of your mind. If representation is a double-edged sword, presence is the hilt.
No Heroes
by Jared Saltiel (Writer, Producer, and Arranger)
Out of the stardust she is born. / Maybe she will be your hero. / She’ll battle the monster, or so we’re told. / When she’s plucked from the crowd, and handed a crown. / We tell her that our hopes are with her now. / Send her off to Hollywood. / Let her fight in Washington. / Fill the sky with shooting stars. / We just lost another one. / Was she a monster all along? / Maybe we should have no heroes.
Note: The day I was born, the moment I took my first breath, Mars was sitting on top of the sky in Cancer. I owe my relationship to heroes (fallen or otherwise) to him.