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“There’s a consciousness that needs to be put around the way that we behave. We can’t just keep patting ourselves on the back or excusing it: ‘We’re creating art! It’s not real!’ It is also really happening to somebody.”
– Sonya Suares
This week we return to the topic of ‘Responsibility’. Fleur speaks with Sonya Suares and Jolyon James on how this concept relates to the actor: the responsibility of the actor, of the director to the actor, diversity in casting and the potential impact of not providing a multiplicity of stories and voices for our stages, and the responsibilities of creating work for children.
“The worst people to ask about what kind of work they want are young people, when you’re making work for young people. But the best thing you can do is find out how they think and what they do.”
-Jolyon James
Discussed in this episode:
Finding the ‘truth’ as an actor or lying about finding it, 8 Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography, creating a sense of safety in the rehearsal room, onstage nudity and vulnerability, We Get It, drama schools, bullying in the rehearsal room, actors learning to say ‘no’, sexual abuse within creative exploration, experiences of acting and casting as a woman of colour, the transformative body of the white actor, racial dramaturgy, Arena Theatre Company, creating work for children.
“The White Body in our racial dramaturgy is the transformative body. So when it suits our purposes, we can go ‘Oh you know…. Race is irrelevant! Why can’t someone who is Eastern European play this role?’ Okay well they can but there are just so few roles being written for this particular ethnicity. Why take one off the table when it’s been written onto our stage?”
– Sonya Suares
Enjoy and stay tuned: we have more exciting and intellectually rigorous conversations to come.
Podcast Bibliography:
On Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography by Declan Greene