It's Called Acting

Pursuant to the shocking revelations that a high school brat who got into a quarrel with an older man while both were making themselves annoying in Washington, and Virginia's Attorney General Mark Herring, and who knows how many other people may have (horrors!) dressed up as members of a different racial group at some time in the twentieth century, this web site feels compelled to confess...

The writer known as Priscilla King was, in the 1980s, a member of the college choir and drama group at a small sectarian college in Maryland.

Actually, it was in Takoma Park, the suburb-town notorious for being a little less expensive but no less multiethnic than Bethesda, where the elementary school students were regularly surveyed and found to be native speakers of, collectively, more than 60 languages. While the stars of the college plays were usually native speakers of some form of English, members of the chorus were a mixed group.

In 1984, the writer known as Priscilla King appeared in a performance of God's Trombones, a musical based on the poems of James Weldon Johnson.



As a play God's Trombones is hardly even worth counting. The plot, to the extent that there is one, is that a church lady dies of old age and her son finds comfort at a funeral service where the congregation keeps bursting out into song--traditional spirituals, or parts or remixes of spirituals. Six members of the cast carry a coffin, two (or more) recite Johnson's poems as prayers or sermons, the young man sings a few lines from spirituals, and everyone else stands around singing. That's it. All characters are presupposed, for historical reasons, to be Black Americans. The writer known as Priscilla King, who has no known Black ancestors but is approximately the same color as Toi Derricotte, appeared on stage in the front row of the choir, unpainted, singing, and uttering one speech: "Poor Sister Caroline." Numerous other White students were on stage, none in real "blackface." Whether I was placed up front because of my color, my height, or both, I didn't ask. Our collective intention, at the time, was to suggest that even though we were White, mostly members of Seventh-Day Adventist or other non-Methodist churches, in Maryland, in the 1980s, we wanted to show some solidarity with Black members of Methodist churches in Georgia in the 1920s.

The stars of this musical "play" were Black, and although they were all repeatedly invited to join the official college choir and drama group, sponsors had had to offer actual scholarship money to lure them away from the Singspiration Gospel Choir. This was an independent cultural institution in Takoma Park that met in the basement of one of the college buildings and toured around the Middle Atlantic States. On Friday nights the group held open practice sessions, slash, religious services, slash, talent searches, slash, fundraising drives. These were open to the whole metropolitan area at no charge but, in the 1980s, the traditional rule was that White people had to be invited by Black Americans. Invitations weren't hard to come by. The writer known as Priscilla King attended many of these events. One year, one of my White schoolmates even toured with the choir.

Moreover, as a result of this scholarship funding, in 1985 one of the stars of God's Trombones appeared in a performance of The Pirates of Penzance where, due mainly to height, she not only sang but danced as the very youngest sister, younger even than Isobel, who was played by the writer known as Priscilla King. (Isobel is technically a speaking part, although her one line in the libretto is often cut. Basically the younger sisters are a chorus whose role consists of singing, giggling, and squealing.)



The Black American singer, although quite dark, did not bother with real "whiteface" makeup either. (Actually all of us, including the men, shared makeup in a way that was very unhygienic, not to mention unflattering.) Our collective intention, at the time, was to suggest that nobody actually gave a flip what anybody looked like, any more than anybody believed that we were the youngest of nineteen sisters of whom the eldest was seventeen.

In on-campus life, that nobody cared what anybody looked like was not quite true. In the 1980s the Seventh-Day Adventist church administration was still organized with mostly-Black and mostly-White churches represented in separate "conferences," which sponsored different prep schools; when the little preppies graduated they came to college in little clumps that spent rainy afternoons reviewing their high school yearbooks together, and always sat together in the cafeteria, and so on. So visitors to the campus could see roughly color-matched social groups. Various college employees used to cluck and fuss at us about this in assembly, and in 1984-85 a small group of (mostly older, more independent, more introverted, and more gifted-and-talented) students became noticeable as being a recognized diverse group...strangely enough, those college employees were not actually pleased with us. Their displeasure had less to do with the fact that Black and White Adventist churches have evolved distinct musical and liturgical styles than with the fact that major college funders wanted the social group that appeared to be having the most fun to be the one that included their children, not us self-funding outsiders. But anyway we, the actors and musicians, honestly did not care what anybody looked like.

It's called acting, people. The fun of dressing up is acting as if you were someone you're not. Get a grip.

When we criticize high-budget Hollywood productions, it does make sense to demand some degree of ethnic match between actors and characters. This gives ethnic-minority actors a chance, however slim, at an equal opportunity to play lead roles as easily as ethnic-majority actors do. How else would U.S. audiences have developed due appreciation for Rekha, for Chow Yun Fat, or for Djimon Hounsou?



But when college students play-act, even in official college-sanctioned fundraisers there's seldom any financial benefit to the students. Most of the time, if money is involved at all, it's the kids' own pocket money they're spending "just for fun." They're kids. They're playing "let's pretend" for what may be the last, best time. They're not trying to make fun of different ethnic groups, genders, generations, or whatever else they may be impersonating. They may actually be learning about whatever kind of people, or other lifeforms, they're impersonating. They're having a good time, while sober, and usually not even staying out (very) late or driving cars.

This web site was not a fanatical fan of Mark Herring back when we were reading his collected works in the Virginia legislature, but if the nastiest dirt anyone can dig up to throw at him is that he once acted in "blackface," in college yet, he's a saint.

Lighten up, please, correspondents.