There are more great roles in the theatre for men than for women. For every Ophelia and Gertrude there are Hamlet, Claudius, Polonius, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Gravediggers, the Ghost; for every Mother Courage and Kattrin, there are a Chaplain, Cook, Swiss Cheese, Eilif, Sergeant, Colonel and General. In most other areas of political, professional and aesthetic life, women are claiming their place, but not as much in theatre. No one raises an eyebrow about a woman prime minister, but there would still be a to-do about a woman on Broadway playing, say, Willy Loman in Arthur Miller\u2019s Death of a Salesman. Not playing Willy \u201cas a woman,\u201d but as the male character Miller wrote\u2026<\/p>\n

What I am probing is the possibility of detaching role-characteristics from actor-characteristics. I am not arguing that Juliet\u2019s gender or age or Othello\u201cs color, or the servant Jean\u2019s class (in Miss Julie) does not matter. Of course these things matter\u2014they are at the core of the roles. What I am arguing for is the ability of a skilled performer to play the needed class, gender, race\u2026<\/p>\n

Of course one can, and must, call for more new plays with more and better roles for women\u2026 But no matter how many worthy new plays are written, the classic Western repertory continues to be played, and this repertory is hugely over-balanced in favor of men\u2019s roles. This imbalance will always be with us, because the repertory is just that: works that are produced again and again.<\/p>\n

It is an imbalance that can be redressed only by re-conceiving what performing on the stage is. There is progress in this direction when it comes to ethnicity, and even, up to a point, with race. Who demands that only Russians act Chekhov, Norwegians Ibsen, Scots the Scottish Play? Slowly but steadily, some of the racism embedded in theatre casting is being overcome. On the American stage, people of color increasingly perform roles beyond those designated as \u201cblack\u201d or \u201cHispanic\u201d or \u201cAsian.\u201d Increasingly, when non-whites perform roles written with whites in mind, the roles are played color-blindly\u2014Mercutio is \u201cplayed by\u201d a black actor or a South Asian actor, rather than being a \u201cblack Mercutio\u201d or a \u201cSouth Asian Mercutio.\u201d The difference in word placement signifies a change in attitude\u2026.<\/p>\n

Meyerhold said nearly 100 years ago: \u201cWomen should take over men\u2019s roles on stage as well as in real life, by acting parts written for male actors. Give me the actresses, and I\u2019ll make a Khlestakov and Hamlet of them, a Don Juan or a Chatsky!\u201d What I am unequivocally advocating here is for women to perform in any and all kinds of roles, in order to help women achieve in theatre what they are achieving in business, law, politics and medicine. If 19th-century critics helped slaughter the open casting of their epoch, let 21st-century critics lead a renaissance of open casting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n