On counterproductive sensitivity or a Black Duke of Marlborough

Whenever I go to the theatre, I read customer reviews. To be honest, it might be a masochist habit, but I am far from being an expert in theatre and can’t but yield to anxiety when I must decide between one play or another. So, even if only to confirm my prejudices, I invariably seek someone else’s advice. And while it is natural to assume that an expert's opinion is better, taste remains the most important factor in aesthetic experiences. It is in fact so even when certain “tastes” (i.e. the critics') are attributed a higher value. I myself find customer reviews advantageous for their simplicity: no great comparisons, no pompous abstractions, no allusions to the authors emotional development since he/she was a teenager. Thus, I read my fellows’ reviews on Queen Anne by Helen Edmundson, brought to the West End by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

As in previous occasions, I was swiftly in despair. The first review commended the play on the basis of its historical accuracy, as the reviewer was able to verify all the facts and plots in...Wikipedia. Further down, another deemed the play to be worthy because of its insight into an unknown (?!) period of British history. One more though it necessary to bring up comparisons with characters from Game of Thrones to make the play appealing. But then sense appeared, however reluctantly. A reviewer gave his thoughts on the way actors approached their characters. Sarah something talked about the script’s abuse of historical exposition and its light uncovering of the emotional depths of fascinating relationships. And a Robert said that, although he was aware of the colour-blind-middle-class-sensitive-young audiences; he would not have a black Duke of Marlborough. I cannot tell whether the reviewer was from England or not–although his name made it plausible, but I welcomed his sincerity as an English Oasis. The decision was made.

Indeed, there is something strange about a black man wearing a white wig and ceremonial attire. I see no point in denying a person’s colour; just as I see no point in denying if someone has curly or red hair; if anyone is short or tall. Differences are real–and refreshing–in spite of any millennialish blindness towards them. But is so happens that some differences have been taken to be more than that. Thus, a black man was thought of as less of a person than a white man. In turn, the aristocracy was regarded superior to the rest of humans. Both stupidities persist, even if in disguise and to varying degrees. In any case, they both are essential components of the British Empire… and of any other empire for that matter. Therefore, I couldn't agree more with Robert: it is absurd to think of a black duke of the British Empire.

Of course it’s a matter of historical accuracy: John Churchill, 1^st Duke of Marlborough, was white; and no climate change ever made his successors black. But it is also a matter of artistic merit. Think of Aristotle’s Rhetoric and its maxim according to which, in art, one would rather have the impossible plausible than the possible implausible. Possible it might be for the Duke of Marlborough to have been black: there is no contradiction in that. However, no doctoral degree is needed to apprehend the history of racism that underlies the rise of the British Empire, the long-standing trade of black slaves throughout Europe with aristocratic support, the Christians' resistance to depict a black St Agustina of Hippo or a brown Christ, regardless of what the facts of their origins might suggest. A black Duke of Marlborough is just utterly implausible, and having a black actor performing as John Churchill makes it extremely hard for one to be subsumed in the play’s world. Such a twist to so embedded realities unconsciously predisposed me for a mockery of some kind. 

Words and their intonation, along with the costumes and the four-poster beds, convey the required imperial air. So would black people being black and white people being white. It might not be a politically correct thing to say. It certainly rules me out as one of a millennial sensitivity–Gott sei Dank. But in art, the form is of the essence. Ergo: It just doesn’t make any sense to be colour blinded with this kind of plays. Wouldn’t it be absurd to have Anthony Hopkins portraying Martin Luther King Jr. or Brad Pitt incarnating Nelson Mandela.

More importantly: this is an interesting turn of events. Our contemporary concerns with race equality might make it necessary to be colour blinded in many occasions; but in others, its counterproductive: when it fails to capture that fact of human history that made race equality something to fight for. History, in its darkest and more colourful detours, should not be disguised in grey overarching capes.