Black Irish

Hilton Als begins his latest review with a striking sentence:

I don’t know a single self-respecting black actor who wouldn’t feel shame and fury while sitting through Martin McDonagh’s new play "A Behanding in Spokane”....

I barely care what Als thinks, and I don't care at all what he believes other people think. Still, what's the problem?

The sad fact is that, in order to cross over, most black actors of Mackie’s generation must act black before they’re allowed to act human.

(This apparently includes Mackie's performance as a bomb squad sergeant in The Hurt Locker, since he was, according to Als, following the Lou Gossett, Jr. paradigm there.)

Als explains further:

[Mackie] performs as though he were Stepin Fechit [sic--in The New Yorker!] in a room full of bickering ghosts. Toby’s characterization is as offensive as the language used to describe him. While Carmichael’s “nigger” talk could be put down to an attempt of McDonagh’s to expose the nastiness of a segment of the population—many writers have used ugly language to paint an honest portrait of racism in this country—the caricature he presents in Toby, the young black male as shucking, jiving thief, can’t be excused on those grounds, or by the slick professionalism that coats the play’s intellectual decay.

I read a number of other reviews and none saw fit to mention this problem that so bothers Als. Since it's not my impression that New York theatre critics are a bunch of racists, my guess is this is Als' obsession. Indeed, I've already criticized him more than once on this count.

This is McDonagh's first play set in America. I wonder how Als felt about his previous work:

Since McDonagh’s first play, “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” was staged on Broadway, in 1998, American audiences have been struck by his universality, despite the fact that Ireland is home to most of his characters. (McDonagh was born in London in 1970 to Irish parents.) Instead of catering to the cliché of the lovable, maudlin Irish—the Celtic counterpart to America’s black mammy and Uncle Remus—McDonagh set out to subvert it.

"Subvert it." Interesting characterization. McDonagh's plays are peopled with sociopaths, crooks and sniveling idiots. Quite a picture.

Not that I disapprove any more than Als does. McDonagh's plays are powerful and funny, even if they paint a limited, caricatured portrait of Ireland. We understand that, sort of the same way we understand a single black character doesn't represent all black people. (And let's not forget we in America see a lot more African-Americans onstage than we see Irish people.)

So I guess things are tough for black actors--as long as Hilton Als is around.