Diverse casting in previously predominantly white ensembles creates an entirely different context for the characters. This article discusses its effects through Moulin Rouge! The Musical.
How It Started
Moulin Rouge! (2001) Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Inspired by Alexandre Dumas (fils)’s Lady of the Camellias and the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, Baz Luhrmann wrote and directed the hit 2001 musical spectacle Moulin Rouge!
The film follows romantic songwriter, Christian, played by Ewan McGregor, fighting to find meaning in Paris. He arrives in Montmartre and is immediately grouped with Henri Toulouse Lautrec. Together, they long to create a beautiful opera to be performed at Paris’s most fabulous nightclub – the Moulin Rouge. And here, Christian meets the club’s best courtesan, Satine (played by Nicole Kidman).
Satine, on a task, to seduce a wealthy duke to save the deteriorating club, mistakes Christian for the lord. Using Christian and Toulouse’s proposed musical as a coverup for their affair, Satine and Christian work to save the club while she must continue a courtship with the real duke.
The film, with a majority white cast, severely lacks diversity and is littered with many stereotypical Indian themes that border on cultural appropriation. Unfortunately, 2001 was not a time for a particularly accommodating film precedent. As exemplified in The Darjeeling Limited and Lost In Translation, many stories focused on a generally white ensemble cast using foreign lands and settings as a “Cultural Backdrop.”
Ultimately, how they look and where they are from has no impact on their characters. It doesn’t offer us further depth or insight into these characters and how they’ve come to us this way.
How It’s Going
Moulin Rouge! The Musical (2019) Directed by Alex Timbers
The Broadway musical follows relatively the same plot – Christian comes to Paris, falls in love with Satine, and Satine must maintain her affairs with both men to sustain her and the club.
However, with the show’s more diverse casting, there are complexities regarding Satine’s character and her role with the two men in her life.
Karen Olivo (also referred to as KO), known for their roles in Broadway’s In The Heights and West Side Story, originated the character Satine from their premiere in Boston until the first COVID-19 Broadway shutdown in March 2020. As a mixed Puerto Rican-Native-Dominican-Chinese actor, Olivo brought different nuances and contexts to the role of Satine as opposed to the original Kidman interpretation.
This is similarly extended to when Natalie Mendoza, a Filipina actress who additionally played China Doll in the original film, took over for Olivo when the show reopened in September 2021.
As two actors of colour, Olivo and Mendoza’s rendition of the courtesan play into larger concepts of fetishism and exoticization that most real sex workers of colour must undergo. Having actors of colour play a character that, for the most part, is being used for the benefit of two white men creates more depth within the text than it would if it were just played with a white actress.
Although Christian is in love with Satine and the Duke borderline abuses her, the matter of fact is that in both relationships, they want something of Satine. With the Duke, it is with the services she offers. With Christian, it is to be with her. Having Satine as a woman of colour only highlights how she got to the point of being indebted to the men around her. The fetishization, this baseline “attraction”, is entirely rooted in harmful tropes which ultimately lead to mistreatment due to personal biases. Having people of colour portray Satine does not necessarily create an entirely new backstory but it does provide depth and real-life consequences to this fictional story Luhrmann created.
What This Means For Diversity in Casting
What is interesting about these casting choices is how they affect the story’s overall plot. It either intensifies the wants and needs of the characters or, in a way, tells a different story than originally intended. There is more depth and cognizance behind characterization; in the case of Moulin Rouge, it allows us, as the audience, to understand how Satine ended up where she did. Although the text isn’t so explicitly written that this casting difference offers a critique or genuine statement on the matter, it gives the audience more to work with.
Satine, as a white woman, tells a story of a girl who had gone down the wrong paths in life. Satine, as a woman of colour, becomes a story about a girl whose circumstances were directly affected by how she is presented to the world – even so in her present life.
As Broadway continues to diversify their casts, it is crucial to understand that these changes can bring a more refreshing choice than the original, as well as much-needed depth that was lacking in the original. This is presented in multiple Broadway shows such as Into The Woods and more.
Like every other industry, Broadway must evolve and bring something new to its modern audiences. Good storytelling (and most importantly, good adapting) must offer something fresh to the audience – otherwise, what’s the point of redoing it?
Moulin Rouge is playing eight times a week at the Al Hirschfeld theatre in New York City under the artistic direction of Alex Timbers. The music is arranged by Justin Levine. The current leads comprise Derek Klena as Christian and Ashley Loren as Satine.
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