The administration’s involvement

According to Mason, the administration’s involvement with the scene that was ultimately altered began in response to some students informing deans that some cast members were uncomfortable with the gestures.

“A couple of the deans had gotten notice from a couple of kids from one person down to another that some of the kids in the play were uncomfortable with the scene in question,” Mason said. “And so that word went to the deans and the deans spoke to Ms. Holman, at which point Ms. Holman, and I and Mr. Kozol, had a conversation with the director about that scene.”

[ezcol_1quarter]For The Sagamore‘s review of Winter’s Tale, click here.

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Mason said that his main role in the process was to help Holman consider the different options and come to a decision.

“Brookline High is full of really mature kids. The Drama Society and the kids in the play had acted this out and had talked about it and worked through it,  and they had to come to a mature understanding of how this fit in with the play and how this fit in with the message they were trying to convey,” Mason said. “My greatest concern was how the audience might perceive it, and that it had potential to be something that without as much depth and time spent talking about it and processing it, there was the potential that people could easily take it out of context and try to make it something it was not.”

According to Mastandrea, the gestures were initially put into the show to demonstrate the racism of the time period that the scene was set in. The gestures occurred during a celebration held in the post-Civil War South in 1877.

Mastandrea said she had wanted to “explore how a biracial couple would’ve been viewed through the 1877 lens.”

“We worked on it, and then we developed this moment,” Mastandrea said. “We wanted to not have text because of course Shakespeare didn’t write it, and I really, really make every effort never to include new text in a Shakespeare play…So we wanted to come up with something that was nonverbal, as a gesture that a racist character might make, because there needed to be some context for racism in the play we determined.”

The scene, according to Mastandrea, was initially challenging to implement due to the complicated staging it would necessitate. However, Mastandrea said that the inclusion of the scene grounded the play historically and realistically showed the atmosphere of the South.

“We worked on it for, I think, a couple of weeks before it went up, and we all felt like it was appropriate for that moment to introduce that horrible element of unacceptance at a time when a biracial couple would not have been accepted by everyone,” Mastandrea said.

Meese said that the scene was created to demonstrate the offensiveness of the gestures.

“We came up with the scene to show something offensive but not offend anybody. If Ms. Holman sees it and then goes and talks with people, and from my understanding she talked to several people about it and really did try and get as many opinions as possible, if she comes back from that with people telling her ‘this will offend people in the audience’ then I have no problem changing it,” Meese said.

Mastandrea said that the issue of racism and biracial couples was addressed in the casting process and that students auditioning were informed of the premise of the show.

“Before I cast it, I did make sure that the people that would be involved, specifically two characters, knew that that’s what the scenario is going to look like, and make sure they were just comfortable playing a biracial couple on stage,” Mastandrea said. “Given the context of the Civil War, again, I didn’t know how it was going to play out then, but I was very clear this was not a case of colorblind casting.”

Continued: freedom, responsibility and the arts →