Cameron Mackintosh, The West End, and Transphobia in Musical Theatre
So I cannot be a trans person who talks about musicals without addressing this. I haven’t seen anyone else talking about this, and they may well have I just haven’t seen, and this interview is a few weeks old now.
For those unaware of who Cameron Mackintosh is, he perhaps the most famous musical theatre producer and is the producer behind the original productions of: Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Kinky Boots, Cats, Mary Poppins, Oliver, Little Shop of Horrors. And the West End versions of: Anything Goes, Follies, Carousel (1993), Oklahoma (1980), My Fair Lady )1970s and 2001), Godspell, Avenue Q (2006), Hair (2010), Sweeney Todd (2015) and most recently the West End production of Hamilton (2017-present), as well as many other musicals. He was knighted in 2017, as of 2019 he has an estimated fortune of £1.28 billion and has been called "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York Times.
Let’s take this point by point shall we?
"Classic West End musicals should not be rewritten to make leading roles transgender”. They wouldn’t have to be. If a trans man was cast as Raoul in Phantom of the Opera, nothing would be changed, nothing would be rewritten, it would just happened to be a trans man playing the part instead. Because trans men are men, trans women are women, they are not ‘other’. Nothing, absolutely nothing would have to be rewritten. For all the audience would know, that could be a cis actor playing the part.
You know how I know casting an LGBT+ person as a character who is cis or het makes no difference? There are multiple gay actors who have played Erik/The Phantom in Phantom of the Opera and the role never had to be ‘rewritten’ for them.
If what he means is the music would have to be rewritten, I don't accept that either. I doubt a trans person is going in for a part they do not have the range for. Some trans people may not be able to sing way out of their assigned-birth-gender vocal range, but some can. I doubt this man has ever sat through an audition of a bass Christine Daaé or a soprano Phantom. There are cis men singing high notes in Jesus Christ Superstar, of course plenty of trans woman can sing high notes. Vocal range is not static to your birth gender.
“You can’t implant something that is not inherently there in the story of character.” People make headcannons about characters being trans because there is no proof that they aren’t. Nowhere in any of these musicals that Mackintosh producers do any of the characters ever call themselves cis. For all we know Munkustrap or Mary Poppins or Enjolras could be trans, and some trans people find comfort in that. Show me somewhere in the original libretto where it says any of these characters are “cisgenered”. You can’t. No of course the original writers never thought about that, I’m some of them are transphobic and would hate the idea, but it is not implanting anything that goes against anything mentioned in the text. And again, like in the point above, would not change anything to the story.
Ah, there it is. Suddenly we’ve gone from trying to hide the transphobia behind ‘no, it’s just that it wouldn’t fit in the story’ to ‘trans people are unnatural and putting trans people in things is just forcing people to see them’. As if this needs to be said, but there is nothing unnatural about trans people. Casting trans people is not ‘forcing wokeness’ it’s just employing anyone who is talented enough for the part. For a community that prides itself on being inclusive and lgbt+ positive, that really does only seem to apply to cis gay men a lot, doesn’t it.
Already addressed above why it isn’t “inherently there in the story”, but also no, being trans isn’t a ‘gimmick’, casting a trans character in a role is not a ‘gimmick’ done to try and bring in lgbt+ viewers (at least it never should be). Actors are not just a silly part of your show, they are a key part of your show and they have their own experiences that they bring too the table and make each character their own, and that includes trans people.
That’s very interesting. Wrong, but let’s see what he means. There’s a new musical opening up soon on the West End where the lead character is a trans woman. It’s an adaptation of the book Breakfast On Pluto, which was also adapted into a movie in 2005 staring Cillian Murphy. Now, I do adore the film because as a teen who was starting to question their gender it spoke to me a lot, but it did make the mistake of casting a cis man as the lead trans woman. But it’s 2021 now, and Mackintosh said new musicals with transgender characters could cast trans people in those roles. So that’s what Breakfast On Pluto did right?
That’s what they did, right?
Yes a new musical with a lead trans woman character has cast a cis man to play this character. All the while turning down all the trans woman who auditioned, as if auditions should have ever allowed anyone other than trans women to apply, and casting a trans woman to play one of the other side cis characters.
The team behind the musical doubled-down after the backlash and were quick to point out that they have other trans people on the crew so that’s good enough right? Wrong.
Violence against trans women goes up when cis men are continually cast as trans women. It perpetuates this idea that trans women are actually men when audiences see the actor outside of the character and the actor is a man. Cis men are terrified of being perceived as gay for liking a trans woman and when the trans woman characters in films, tv and theatre are all played by men (most noticeably and recently Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl) it only seeks to push that belief further.
Cameron Mackintosh doesn’t believe trans people have any business playing characters that were not 100% explicitly written as being trans and we should essentially ‘stick to our own stories’. But then when a new musical comes to the West End with a lead trans character, a cis man is cast.
I implore everyone to watch this short clip from the documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen:
And just because cis women do not abuse and attack trans men to the same scale that cis men do to trans women, it still means seeing a female actor play a trans man contributes to transphobia in the audience as all they see is a woman 'pretending to be a man', a 'man in a skirt', someone who off-screen is not that gender.
Tdlr: Trans people can play cis characters and it doesn't require the role to be re-written, or the whole script to be re-written. Trans characters should be played by trans people.
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