On August 7, 1990, the American Equity Association (AEA) declared that a British actor, Jonathan Pryce, could not play the role of an Eurasian pimp in the play Miss Saigon. One must wonder what series of events lead to this outrageous racial act! The cause of this action can be sum up with one word: PROTEST! A couple of Asian AEA members did not believe that Pryce deserved the role and thought that an Asian actor would be more suited to act that particular character. With the labeling of the play as a “yellow-face minstrel show,” they planned a protest and successfully prevented Pryce from being casted for the part. On the other hand, the producer of the play, Cameron Mackintosh, was greatly dismayed about the whole incident and considered this treatment unfair due to his careful casting of other characters to be played by Asian actors and actresses. Not only did it bring unwanted racial discrimination onto the stage and destroyed the original vision of the play, it also exposed the selfish efforts of minorities wanting to take advances.
Miss Saigon’s plot follows a similar story of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, where it involves a heart-wrenching relationship between an Asian woman and an American man. The two main characters in the story surrounds the life of a Vietnamese bar girl and an American man from the United States Army.
Believing that only Pryce can rightfully play that role, Mackintosh was able to battle this mistreatment by choosing to stop the Broadway production despite the high early admission sales that tallied over twenty-five million in cash.
However the actions of not being able to cast the wanted actors and the cancellation of the play brought displeasure to not only Asian AEA members and Mackintosh, but to modern theatre fans. The issue was later resolved in October 7, 1990 after much discussion with a big help from the public media. Majority of the public sided with Mackintosh and persuade AEA to reconsidered their previous decision on the topic with emails and calls that called for action.
In the end, the Broadway production was up and running again after the ban was lifted, which allowed Pryce to take his original spot in Miss Saigon.This shows that discrimination is not only towards minorities, but to everyone else. It basically just takes communication and a compromise to reach an agreement that will respect and please both parties.
Sources:
http://us_asians.tripod.com/timeline-overall4.html
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