• Much Ado About Comet

A producer trying desperately to save a sinking show removes a relatively unknown actor (with full compensation) in exchange for a major box office draw. Seems straightforward enough.

Now try it again: A producer trying desperately to save a sinking show removes a relatively unknown black actor (with full compensation) in exchange for a major Caucasian box office draw. If that sounds different to you, then the problem may be you. 

This is the much-reported situation with the musical The Great Comet of 1812, an eclectic musical based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace. A locally known black actor named Okieriete “Oak” Onaodowan, known among aficionados for his role in Hamilton, was assigned the unenviable task of following the singing sensation Josh Groban in the lead role. Unfortunately, the production reportedly struggled with relentless post-Groban depression. Aiming to keep the distressed show afloat, the producers announced a casting coup: they had enticed Mandy Patinkin, a nationally known television star and bona fide musical legend, to return to Broadway in his first big musical appearance in years. Oak would have to step down for three weeks, fully paid, while Patinkin took over.

Unfortunately, the dramatic move was perceived in some quarters not as a young actor giving way to a Broadway sensation, but as a young black man being pushed off stage by an older white man. Even allowing for the clumsy way in which the situation was handled by the novice producers (who need better press skills), that argument is grossly unfair to everyone involved. The show is said to employ 15 minority actors vs. 20 non-minority actors, including the Tony-nominated lead actress, and has won an award for diversity in casting in a show set in 19th century Russia. Oak himself, of course, was a replacement for a white actor.

The producers’ loyalty is not to any single actor but to the show – not only to their investors and creative team, but to the many actors, stagehands and others who are dependent on the show’s success for their own livelihoods. Oak is not the first person to be yanked in this way for business reasons, or even the most notorious: ask Patti LuPone, a white star who was booted unceremoniously from the musical Sunset Boulevard for a bigger white star, Glenn Close. Reducing the latest situation literally to black and white is pitiful. Critics need to remove their black-colored glasses and get with the reality of business on Broadway.

One media column recalls in this regard the controversy over Miss Saigon, when the Asian community went bonkers over the choice of a white actor to play a mixed-race role. (Never understood that one – I have plenty of mixed-race friends here in Japan who look more white, black, Indian or such than East Asian.) In that light, I thought of a conversation I had with a New York theater person over the recent Lincoln Center production of The King & I. The feeling in the industry was that the production could have continued its successful run if there was a star in the role of the king. But there are simply no Asian-American musical stage stars of that caliber (they had to go to Japan to find their initial actor, Ken Watanabe), and to avoid financial suicide, it was deemed safer to shut down the production entirely – along with its large near-total cast of ethnic East Asians – than to deal with the inevitable flak from hiring an actor of white, black or other ethnicity. Since that’s evidently not how diversity works.

I can’t imagine Mandy Patinkin or any other non-minority actor coming in at this point, and unless the producers lure someone like Jay-Z or, more improbably, minority audiences show up in bulk to support the current lead, the enjoyable show (I review it here) isn’t likely to be around for long. The relentless victimization crowd will again destroy the very thing it is claiming to protect. Shame.

P.S.  A friend questioned whether Patinkin, who won a Tony as Che Guevara in the Broadway debut of Evita,  would be allowed anywhere near that Hispanic role these days. Good point.