Age On Stage
Age On StageEver since August: Osage County premiered at Steppenwolf two years ago, I've heard one common "complaint" about one member of its cast, "Sally Murphy (pictured, far left) is way too young to be playing the role of Ivy Weston."
No matter that Ivy is written as a 40 year old woman.
Oh I know, I know. Sally Murphy certainly doesn't look anything close to 40. After all, her last Broadway role prior to August was as the young, baby-faced Tzeitel in the 2004 revival of Fiddler On The Roof. But truth be told, Sally Murphy was born in the fall of 1962, making her just a tad older than Ivy Weston. Murphy isn't getting older, she's getting better.
More recently, I've been struck by the number of people (including yours truly) who found an incongruity in matching Jayne Atkinson (pictured, middle) with Rupert Everett (pictured, right) as her husband in the recently departed Broadway revival of Blithe Spirit. No, no one was musing anything about real-life sexual orientation. Instead, I kept hearing, "Jayne Atkinson's Ruth looks way too old to be the wife of Rupert Everett's Charles."
As my dear friend SarahB at Adventures in the Pursuit of Endless Entertainment has continually reminded me, the lovely Atkinson was made up to appear older than she really is. Because in actuality, Atkinson -- born on February 18, 1959 -- is a mere three months older than Everett, who was born on May 29, 1959. Ironically, I didn't hear a soul complain about the stretch of Everett being paired with Christine Ebersole as his first wife Elvira. The eternally youthful looking Ebersole celebrated her 56th birthday just three days after Atkinson turned 50.
My point in all this? Our ageist culture does a tremendous disservice to individuals of all ages, actors and otherwise, as it tries to peg people into stereotypes based on age or lack thereof. Since we've seen color-blind and to a lesser degree gender-blind casting, maybe age-blind casting should be seriously considered, too. The stage is perhaps the best laboratory to make it happen.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: August Osage County, Blithe Spirit, Broadway, Christine Ebersole, color blind casting, Jayne Atkinson, Rupert Everett, Sally Murphy
posted by Steve On Broadway (SOB) @ Tuesday, July 21, 2009
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