|hntertainment
equal
parts
. Playhouse taps
multicultural
pool of talent
By Liza Holtmeier
Senior staff writer
Forget white men in tights performing
“Hamlet.”
At the Lincoln Community Playhouse,
you’re more likely to see a Caribbean musical
like “Once On This Island” with a multiracial
cast.
In an art form where the meatiest roles have
traditionally called for white men, the Playhouse
is smashing racial barriers and presenting theater
diverse in its approach and its content.
Through nontraditional casting and the
selection of more contemporary plays, the
Playhouse has tried to get artists from more
diverse backgrounds on its stage.
“We wanted to let people know that this was
n’t a closed shop for upper-middle-class white
people,” said Robin McKercher, LCP’s artistic
director.
Realizing the acting pool m Lincoln consists
of blacks, Asians. Hispanics and a variety of
other ethnic backgrounds, McKercher has
reached out into the community to tap into this
pool of talent.
He used nontraditional casting as his first
tool of exploration. Nontraditional casting
involves ignoring the playwright’s descriptions
of the characters and breaking away from con
ventional casting decisions.
Not only does nontraditional casting get eth
nic actors on stage, it also can revitalize a pro
duction, and Marthaelien Florence, a longtime
performer at the Playhouse, said it gives the
viewing audience a different perspective.
“You can only have so many cute little
blondes or redheads. Other people have different
experiences and different cultures, and they
bring that to the stage,” Florence said.
However, the world of Broadway theater is
currently enveloped in a debate concerning the
... _ . vsimmm _v_._ ]
Photo Courtesy of Lincoln Community Playhouse
IN LAST FALL’S production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the Lincoln Community Playhouse cast black actress Marthaellen Florence
in the typically white role of Nurse Ratched. To complete the ethnic reversal, white actors played the orderlies, here trying to restrain the vio*
lent McMurphy from strangling Ratched.
An ongoing took at ethnic contributions to
Nebraska state
efficacy of nontradition
al casting, McKercher
said. One school of
thought wants to remain
true to the ethnicity of
me piaywrignt s charac
ters. Followers of this school believe keeping
with the original intent avoids assimilating the
work into a mainstream culture.
The other school of thought promotes color
blindness in casting. This school says a director
has every right to cast an all-black “Macbeth”
McKercher said bending the rules is legiti
mate, as long as the play achieves its primary
themes.
“From my perspective, I just want to have my
arms open out here,” McKercher said. “I'm of
the ‘Who cares?’ school. As directors, we’re
allowed the prerogative to experiment with the
text on the page. That is merely the catalyst
towards achieving great art.”
However, nontraditional casting can present
challenges for both the actors and the audience.
Florence has first-hand experience with non
traditional casting at the LCP. In “One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest,” Florence played Nurse
Ratched, a character described by the playwright
as blond and blue-eyed.
Florence said she enjoyed the chance to play
this challenging and multidimensional part, but
she worried about people attaching the wicked
ness of her character to her race.
“People would come
up to me and say, ‘We
really hated you on
stage.’ One of my con
cerns was that people
wouldn t be able to sepa
rate the character from the person. It became an
issue with some of the older patrons and with
some of the cast members,” Florence said.
In response, Florence said she was very
direct with people who were politically incorrect
when discussing her character.
But the end results, Florence said, were worth
the struggle. Audiences saw a play refreshing in
its new direction and exploration.
“My hope and my dream is that people are
going to be colorblind when they come out here,”
McKercher said.
But while nontraditional casting succeeds in
getting ethnic actors on the stage, McKercher
also wants to present the stories of other cultures
as well.
For the past few years, the Playhouse season
has included plays such as the black drama “A
Raisin in the Sun” and the multiracial musical
“Once On This Island.”
The Playhouse has not disclosed the titles for
next year’s season, but McKercher said they
include a multiracial musical and a play about
blacks settling a town in Kansas in the 1880s.
The Playhouse also has formed a Diversity
Committee. This committee collaborates with
different community centers, such as the F Street
Recreation Center and the Asian Center, in an
effort to find more ethnic talent.
This summer, the committee will offer schol
arships to ethnic youths to attend the Theater Arts
Academy. The Academy is a two-week-long
camp at the Playhouse that teaches kids about
theater.
The Playhouse’s efforts, though extensive,
are a relatively new phenomenon. The move
ment’s beginnings can be traced to McKercher’s
arrival at LCP 2Vi years ago.
“There didn’t used to be this effort,” said
Brian Taylor, another regular performer at LCP.
“As soon as Rob came on the scene, he had this
whole idea of incorporating everyone.”
However, changing the theater’s image took
time.“When he first came here, he had a sort of
pie-in-the-sky attitude,” Florence said. “He
found out that not all kinds of people wanted to
come to the Playhouse because it had an elitist
sort of environment. He’s worked really hard to
circumvent that attitude.”
And with the avant-garde theater The Futz
closed since last spring, McKercher is the only
director in Lincoln making an effort to do things
like nontraditional casting, Florence said.
McKercher said he’s just helping the
Playhouse fulfill its purpose.
“We are a community playhouse,”
McKercher said. “And community means every
body.”
Waters’ ‘Pecker’ pokes fun at fame, snobby NY art world
By Jeff Randall
Senior staff writer
For 30 or so years, John Waters has
made a career for himself as a sleaze
ethnographer of sorts.
He has put a camera up to the
extreme, the profane and the outra
geous. And he’s never really blinked,
either.
But in “Pecker,” Waters' latest film,
the equally acclaimed and reviled
director turns the camera on himself
sort of.
Edward Furlong stars as the title
character, a bom-and-bred Baltimore
youth who spends most of his time tak
ing pictures of everyone he sees around
his hometowm - including his klepto
maniac best friend, his sugar-addled lit
tle sister and his grandmother's talking
statue of the Virgin Mary.
When a New York art dealer (Lili
Taylor) sees his work, she brings him to
the big city and turns him into an
overnight art-world sensa. on.
But when Pecker’s family, friends
Film Review Ml
The Facts
Title: “Pecker”
Stars: Edward Furlong, Christina Ricci, Lili
Taylor
Director: John Waters
Rating: R (language, nudity)
Grade: 6
Five Words: Art imitating life imitating art
and photography subjects start feeling
the brunt of his fame, they turn on him,
and he is forced to decide between art
world notoriety and small-time sim
plicity.
It’s difficult to tell where fact and
fiction meet in this quasi-autobiograph
ical tale, but Waters seems to revel in
that mixture. He and Pecker are both
from Baltimore, and they both hit the
big time by chronicling the admittedly
offbeat people around them.
Beyond that, Waters’ screenplay
takes a serious - if slightly skewed -
“teabagging” (don’t ask, just see the
movie), but this film works best when
Waters simply lets the story ride along.
Furlong is ultimately likable in the
starring role. He plays the innocent
artist with little effort, and he bounces
off Waters' oddball cast of characters
without ever missing a beat.
Christina Ricci plays Pecker’s
working-class girlfriend with an equal
mix of charm and bile. And Martha
Plimpton makes excellent use of her
limited screen time as Pecker’s sister,
who works at the gay strip club where
many of his more innovative pho
tographs are taken.
The only moments in which
“Pecker” truly suffers take place when
Waters resorts to the typical fame-isn’t
all-it’s-cracked-up-to-be commentary
and half-hearted love scenes. But those
moments are thankfully scarce, and
“Pecker” emerges as an enjoyable film.
“Pecker” opens at the Mary Riepma
Ross Film Theater tonight. Its nm con
tinues through Sunday and Jan. 28-30.
For screening times, call the Ross
Theater box office at (402) 472-5353.
Courtesy Photo
ROREY (LIU TAYLOR) takes Pecker (Edward Furlong) out of his hometown
of Baltimore and brings him to New York where his photographs earn him
instant fame.
look at the content and motivation
behind true art. He takes a few digs at
the New York art scene while he’s at it,
and he manages to wrap it all up with a
feel-good ending that only John Waters
could muster.
“Pecker” is still filled with occa
sionally over-the-top imagery, includ
ing a pair of rats fornicating in a trash
can and a strip club rite known as