February 10, 2009

Liz Smith mentioned the "Legends!" event today here. Excellent! Thank you, Miz Liz. Whoopi also writes for that blog.

The event was also mentioned here on this black entertainment news page. Their mention, which is positive, says that Whoopi is playing a "servant." I thought, "Surely that word was not in our press release." But I checked the release again, and it's there. It sounds so demeaning out of the context of the release. I'm surprised there hasn't been a complaint about it.

Are people called "servants" still? Maybe they are called "service personnel" or something more politically correct.

Pondering all this made me think I should post here some information about how the text for the upcoming event has evolved. During the original production of the play, there were complaints that the role of Aretha the housekeeper was treated poorly. And when we did the reading in Sag Harbor (see below) I got the feeling that Brenda Denmark and Sean Watters, the actors who played Aretha and Boom-Boom, were not completely happy with the race issue in the text.

Rather than ignore this issue in my adaptation, I have made it more outrageous and, hopefully, have made it more of a statement. Also, it was and is my belief, that if the role is bigger and made more of a "star" part, and a star is hired for the part, then the taint of racial discrimination disappears. Especially when the African-American star's persona is familiar to everyone, and therefore the audience is comfortable knowing that she can, AND WILL, give as good as she gets! And that is why I sent the play to Whoopi, who is a star and has in the past enjoyed poking fun at racial stereotypes.

I don't want to give too much away, but I made some other significant changes to the text with all this in mind. You'll just have to come see the show to find out what I'm talking about. And the truly conscientious will want to compare my adaptation with the original published version you can get here .