Hapa on a Boat Pt. 4: BLM and No More Whitewashing

Hapa Mag - OCTOBER 7, 2020

By Rebecca Lee Lerman

I’ve never spoken on this in my “Hapa on a Boat” series. I had omitted it for fear of losing my job or getting tons of backlash from the creative team or fellow cast mates that I would be stuck on a ship with for 6 months.

But now with the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and the systemic racism that continues in our country, I cannot stay silent about this particular experience with race any longer. Watching Griffin Matthew’s Instagram video in response to the Amy Cooper incident gave me the courage to write about my experience, and I agree with Matthews: Broadway really is racist.

“Don’t Leave Me This Way”

Besides the show on the ship, I had been in one other production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It was in Austin, TX, and the cast was the most diverse and colorful I’d ever been a part of. There were Black, Brown, Latinx, mixed-race, white and of course Hapa performers (me). The show took place during the months leading up to the 2016 election that would ultimately put Trump in the White House. You could feel our energy, raising our voices against voting a white supremacist into office as we sang “We Belong” and “Color My World.”

The director gave me free reign over my interpretation of Cynthia, an otherwise stereotypical Asian role. I was able to make her human. My understudy was Filipina. Two Divas in the show were, rightly, Black, because they are based on The Weather Girls. Miss Understanding was Black, because he emulates Tina Turner. We had a mixed-race, half-Black Tick/Mitzi, because, why not? “Color My World.” It was the best.

I was eventually cast in a second production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. This was after Trump’s election, and this Priscilla was the Broadway property. I was told to make my voice more “high-pitched and Chinesey.” My white understudy was told, “As long as you have the brown wig it’ll be OK.”

Except for me, the whole cast was white. Including the Divas. If that wasn’t enough, during music rehearsal, one of the Divas asked, “Do you want us to ‘Black it up?’”

In this all-white cast, offensive things were said in the dressing room that just would not have been said had the cast been more diverse. A Diva, who had been getting super tan, was proud when someone remarked that she looked half-Black. Another one of the Divas said, “I don’t understand Black Lives Matter. All Lives Matter.”

I don’t know if it was because I was the only person of color in the cast, or the age difference, but I was definitely not invited to many outings with the girls. I spent most of my time there holding in sadness. I felt powerless and alone.

I ended up exploding over a different issue, which involved excluding a drag number from a Christmas show because the ship's entertainment director “wanted to keep it family-friendly.” You can read about that in Hapa on a Boat Part 3.

There was discrimination from every angle. And on a ship that is supposed to positively represent the LGBTQ community in the show Priscilla. How backward is this world?

I did speak up to the director about making my voice “more Chinesey.”

“Go West”

The argument he gave for playing Cynthia as a stereotype was, “Well, she was written that way.” Yeah, well, as Nina Simone said, “An artist's duty is to reflect the times.” If the times are showing that racism and hate crimes toward people of color are rising, maybe we need to take that into consideration and update the portrayal of this “stereotype” to influence those narrow-minded individuals sitting in the audience, especially when the audience is not only from America but around the world.

The director responded, “Oh well, what I meant was, can you make her voice more high-pitched, as if she’s pretending to be the best possible 1950s housewife, to contrast when we discover that she’s not that.” Well... why didn’t this director say that in the first place? Why the racist direction first? Did he not know, because of my Hapa looks, that I’m actually Chinese? It’s not an excuse, but I wonder about that now, and it’s even more upsetting if he thought he could say this to me because he didn’t think I was Chinese.

The Broadway property of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert needs to do better. How can you sing “Color My World” and “We Belong” with an all-white cast?

The show’s music is from the disco era, which comes from African American music, a derivation of funk and soul. If we want to show that Black lives matter, we can’t erase Black people from their very own music presented in this musical. They inspire the main characters of the show.

“I Will Survive,” “It’s Raining Men,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” “Shake Your Groove Thing,” “Boogie Wonderland,” “MacArthur Park,” and “Hot Stuff,” are sung by Black Divas like The Weather Girls. They even say, “We’re your weather girls” in the show! Gloria Gaynor, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Peaches & Herb, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Donna Summer. The Black culture in Priscilla is so paramount and influential. It makes sense to cast Black Divas, a Black Miss Understanding, and how about some more Black, Brown, and mixed people? You know, cause we all matter, right?

I’ll say it again. Show that Black lives matter by casting Black people. Don’t erase them from the music they gave us.

Also, show that you’re against whitewashing by casting actual Asian actors in Asian roles — and change the intention behind the delivery if the lines were written to fulfill a stereotype. This is 2020. Reflect the times. Pave the way for the future, or stay in the past and die out.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and many shows like it, cast people of many colors. Keep the protest in your bones, so that white supremacy doesn’t win. Never again. Broadway shows, theatre companies, artists, creators, and storytellers, be a part of change. Show the world for the better. Color our world. Always.