Japanese artist calls out Philly play for racism issues, makes video of talk with director

Back in March, Makoto Hirano, a self-proclaimed "dance-theater artist, actual Japanese person, and actual Samurai descendant," circulated an open letter addressed to the Lantern Theater Company regarding its production of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (Feb. 6 - March 16) called "How to Stage Your Show Without Being Super Racist." Hirano, a member of the Team Sunshine Performance Corporation collective, took issue with several cultural insensitivities in the production, including:

"DON'T say you were inspired by feudal Japan and then not cast any Japanese actors ... Don't have your 100% non-Japanese cast wear straw hats, or drink from chokos (those cute sake cups) or play fake bamboo flutes ... DON'T mistake the act of jamming a knife into the stomach as seppuku, because one is pop culture and the other requires a very detailed ritual..."

Read the whole letter here.

I spoke to Hirano shortly after he had delivered the letter to Charles McMahon, the artistic director at Lantern and the director of Julius Caesar. Hirano said he hoped to have a sit-down with McMahon about the production choices, the casting and how such issues could be avoided in the future. McMahon told me over the phone that he welcomed a discussion with Hirano, but didn't discuss specifics of production choices.

But now, that sit-down between the two actually happened. Hirano emailed last week with a link to a video of their talk. In a very enlightening discussion about the nature of casting, the production choices (for better or worse) of Philly theater, and the lack of Asian-American actors auditioning for plays in the city, McMahon admits to missteps in Caesar, and explains how Lantern strayed a bit too far from the original staging ideas:

"My idea at first was, what if the Italian Peninsula has been conquered and occupied by a sort of feudal Japanese society that then left, and this is what the Rome would like like that they left behind...It was originally intended to be a new creation, an abstraction, more, the overall look was originally thought of as more of a departure from or hybrid of, rather than trying to do something that was authentically Japanese. In my own self-critique afterwards...what we ended up with looked too close to Japanese, it really needed more time, it needed more money, it needed more development...if I had this to do over again...there was no problem with the original concept of it, it would need to have been approached differently than we did. I think that the execution of it was a little bit more than we were ready to pull off as a company."

And regarding casting:

"We have not specifically paid any attention to the race of the actor in casting the role, except when it was clearly indicated by either the script or by the specific circumstances of the piece...When you do find chronic under representation of a certain ethnic composition of the audience you're trying to reach, that is something that needs to be addressed in a more affirmative way. That's certainly something that we're looking at for the future...it is of great value for the audience to see people that look like them up on the stage."

Perhaps most striking:

Hirano: "How many Asian-American performers show up for those [casting calls]?"
McMahon: "Not many, not many. No...Last year, two. I'm not happy to say that over the last several years we have on three occasions cast Asian performers. That's not adequate."

McMahon also goes on to say:

"Out of ignorance we are bound to make mistakes and sometimes embarrassing or obvious ones, and when we do, we rely on other members of our community to point them out to us...I think when something is pointed out it's important to take it in, acknowledge it and then work to try to make it better... These are real issues, they need to be dealt with in a serious way, and that starts with a personal interaction and looking people in the eye whom you have offended or hurt in some way."

Way to do the classy thing, Lantern.

Hirano ends the video with this: "This is just the beginning of a longer term relationship, a longer conversation...We're going to build something beautiful and wonderful out of something that was less beautiful and wonderful."

Here's hoping.

Watch the entire video here.