Hi-Ho, the Glamorous Life: Embracing the Mirror, Part Two: Such Great Heights

Marissa Skudlarek follows up Ashley Cowan’s piece from yesterday with her own tall tales.

September, 2000. I am a 13-year-old high school freshman who dreams of theatrical stardom. My local community theater is holding auditions for Annie, seeking girls between the ages of 7 and 13 to play the orphans, and I beg my parents to let me try out.

“Okay,” they say, “but you realize you haven’t got a chance, right? The orphans in Annie need to be cute kids, but you don’t look like a cute kid anymore – you’re too tall.”

At 13, I am about 5’6”, a few inches below my final adult height of 5’8”. I argue that there are plenty of real-life 13-year-old girls who are 5’6”, and it stood to reason that one of them could’ve been in a Depression-era orphanage. There was nothing wrong with that logic, except that casting has its own shorthand. The orphans in Annie have to be cute kids, and the easiest way to convey that a character is young is to cast someone short.

If I’d been cast as a 5’6” orphan in Annie, my idea was to play the role as surly and truculent and resentful – since I’d be playing the oldest orphan, the one who’d been there the longest. Even as a young girl, I guess I’d absorbed the idea that tall women often play the bitch or the villainess. “I feel like unless I ask to read for a certain role, I am going to be handed sides for the ball-buster/ice queen/bitchy lawyer part,” says local actress Erika Bakse, 5’9”. “I don’t generally mind this because they are pretty fun roles — there’s a reason the majority of quotes in the recent New Yorker article about The Real Thing came from Charlotte, who is in only 3 scenes of the play. But it would be fun to get the opportunity to show other sides of myself. Interestingly, the one time I got to be more of an ingénue was in Stop Kiss, with a shorter Callie opposite me. Bisexuals/lesbians can be any height, I guess.”

(Full disclosure: last year, Katja Rivera and I cast Erika as a ball-busting feminist in my play Pleiades. Erika’s character was also supposed to be the oldest of the eight young women onstage, and her height probably helped her read that way to the audience, too.)

On this blog, we often talk about the difficulties facing female actors: too many aspirants and not enough roles. In such an environment, anything that makes a woman “difficult” to cast can turn into a permanent handicap. I therefore wonder how many tall women get dissuaded from acting, if prejudices along the lines of “The leading man always needs to be taller than the leading lady” mean that they’re not cast as frequently as their shorter sisters. By the time I got to college I was pretty sure that the odds were against my making it big as an actress, and I felt like part of that had to do with my height.

At the same time, college was when I came to terms with my height, and started to take pride in it. Instrumental in this was seeing Cate Blanchett play Hedda Gabler, in a production that began with a dumb-show in which Blanchett stalked around the stage for a minute or two. The stage was dimly lit and I was seated in the back row of the balcony, but Blanchett’s stage presence astounded me: her elegance, her dignity, her power, her height. Like me, she is 5’8″. I draw on my memory of her performance whenever I need a jolt of self-confidence about being a tall lady.

Me and the Desk Set ladies on audition night. Even slouching, I’m still taller than everyone.

This year, when I played Elsa in the comedy The Desk Set, my four-inch heels and bouffant blonde wig made me the tallest person onstage. And there were several moments where my height became part of the joke: in my stage kiss with Alan Coyne (who commented that the wig and heels made me very intimidating); when I stared down my romantic rival, played by the petite brunette Kitty Torres; when I danced the tango with Andrew Calabrese, my breasts at the level of his eyes. It was fun to use my physicality in this way, though if I think about it too hard, I can start to have qualms: does this mean there’s something inherently ludicrous about tall women? And it seems less likely that I’d be asked to kiss a shorter actor in a scene that was meant to be earnest rather than comical.

Some roles are specifically earmarked for tall actresses. I get annoyed when women of average height play Rosalind in As You Like It, because the reason Rosalind gives for dressing up as a boy is “I am more than common tall.” And the catfight between Hermia and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a short-girl vs. tall-girl classic. (After our scene in The Desk Set, Kitty Torres and I are now hoping that someone will cast us as Hermia and Helena. Producers, call us!) Overall, though, in classical theater, there seems to be an unspoken rule that young actresses play ingénues and middle-aged actresses play queens. The difficulty is that we tend to think of ingénues as petite and queens as statuesque.

Local actress Valerie “Three-Time Helena” Weak, who is 5’10”, has these stories and tips:

I don’t think I’ve ever played opposite someone in a romantic onstage relationship who was shorter than me. I’ve definitely dealt with callbacks where we were paired according to height (like when none of the taller Noras got to read with the shorter Torvald) – and that happens even more often when they’re putting together ‘families’ or ‘couples’ for a callback at a commercial.

I’ve learned to make sure I wear flat shoes when I audition for shorter male directors – I’ve definitely had audition situations where a shorter male director is put off by my height in general. I also know to ask costume designers for rehearsal shoes ASAP if I’m going to be wearing a heel in the show – not so much for me to practice walking in them, but for the men who will be working with me to get ready for how much vertical stage space I’m going to take up, rather than that being one more thing for them to adjust to in tech week.

Let’s go back to 13-year-old Marissa. In the middle of writing this article, I procrastinated by rereading some old emails I sent to my high-school acting teacher, and happened upon this amazingly pertinent quote:

I was complaining to my mom about this and she said I should ask you. I read in Vanity Fair that this hot new talent, an 18-year-old actress called Anne Hathaway, had wanted to do Broadway but wasn’t cast because she was too tall. Her height? 5 foot 8. What I wanted to know is if, in your experience with various shapes and sizes of actors, height is a hindrance to actresses if they want to get cast. Because it would absolutely suck if that were the case. So superficial.

Even as a teen, it seems, I was worried about the plight of being a tall actress. My teacher responded with these words of wisdom:

The theater world runs the gamut from directors and agencies that cast specifically for looks, to directors and agencies that cast based on talent, and everywhere in between. Is your cousin dating the casting director? Did you schmooze with the right people? Has so-and-so told what’s-their-name about whozit who mentioned your work to the director? Did you perform remarkably? Was your audition scheduled after the director had a fight with his/her boyfriend/girlfriend? So many factors figure into casting that it is best to just do your best. Let the rejections roll off your back, and the acceptances be wonderful surprises. Height, weight, skin color, gender… there are a few things with which you are born… worry about the elements under your control. Are you well-rehearsed? Have you worked on making your instrument the best it can be? Did you sleep enough last night? Do you have good relations with your family and friends?

Which seems like good advice for anyone, be they old or young, male or female, short or tall.

Marissa Skudlarek is a San Francisco-based playwright, arts writer, and sometime actress, who enjoys playing the “Am I The Tallest Person In This Elevator” game whenever she’s at her day job. For more: marissabidilla.blogspot.com or @MarissaSkud on Twitter.

Hi-Ho, the Glamorous Life: A Nice Day for a White Wedding?

Buckle up, Marissa is referencing Billy Idol.

Over the weekend, I attended my cousin’s wedding outside of Philadelphia. After the church service and the lengthy reception, there were some ad hoc after-parties in the hotel where many of us were staying, and I found myself in a room with a bunch of my cousin’s friends from college. The atmosphere was very “frat party” and I only stayed for five minutes, but that was enough time for me to overhear an unexpectedly interesting conversation: “This is the whitest wedding I’ve ever been to,” said an Asian-American young man.

“No kidding,” said his friend, who, like everyone else in the room, was white. And they proceeded to try to count up how many wedding guests were people of color. They thought of about three (out of 150+ attendees).

Overhearing this conversation really made clear to me just how much racial diversity is an active topic of discussion, in a way that it wasn’t even five or ten years ago. When even a bunch of drunken, mostly-white bros are counting people of color and complaining that my big Catholic family wedding has too many white people at it, that’s when you know that this topic has hit the mainstream.

This is happening in regards to gender diversity, too; witness the outcry this week when the cast of the upcoming Star Wars sequel turned out to include only one new female character (as opposed to 6 new male characters). And I find myself preoccupied with these topics all the time: I submit statistics to Valerie Weak’s “Counting Actors” project; I make little tallies of male vs. female writers whenever the winners of a playwriting contest are announced; I see a show with an all-white cast, and wonder if they were truly the best people for the job, or if racism is at work.

But at the same time… I kind of hate myself for doing these things. It’s easy to count actors and easy to work up a sense of outrage; it is much harder to actually change things for the better. Especially because I happen to believe that a lack of diversity most often results from abstract, sociological, systemic reasons, rather than from individual acts of racism or prejudice. Sure, the ethnic composition of the guests at my cousin’s wedding did not mirror the ethnic composition of the United States as a whole… but what were the bride and groom supposed to do about that?

Furthermore, if I think about these things too much, I start brooding over unanswerable questions. Is it “okay” that the new Star Wars actors are mostly male, because two of those men (John Boyega and Oscar Isaac) are people of color? Is it “okay” for me to celebrate a theater season that has 50% male and 50% female writers, if all of those writers are white and come from privileged backgrounds? Is strict adherence to ethnic and gender diversity, to dismantling the old racist and patriarchal power structures, my top priority — and if it isn’t, does that make me a horrible person?

I think that it feels petty and mean-spirited to spend so much of my time counting actors and getting outraged; and then I think no, the petty, mean-spirited people are the ones who want things to remain status quo. I wish that we spent more time online discussing philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics rather than identity politics, and then I realize that that makes me sound like a stereotypical White Person, stuck up in an ivory tower. I realize that to say “I don’t want to spend so much time thinking about race” merely reveals my immense privilege: society might allow me to ignore the fact of my whiteness, but it will not allow a black person to ignore her blackness.

But still… I want to be positive and receptive to change, not embittered or resentful or willfully ignorant. So perhaps I should just say that I am grateful that even drunken bros are counting people of color — this kind of awareness might be the first step toward the systemic, society-wide changes that we need — and I look forward to seeing where things go from here. I hope that the conversation goes deeper — and that the world moves forward.

Marissa Skudlarek is a San Francisco-based playwright and arts writer. If you don’t mind hearing from yet another young, white, female voice, find her at marissabidilla.blogspot.com or on Twitter @MarissaSkud.

Hi-Ho, The Glamorous Life: I’m a Feminist, In Case You Didn’t Know

Hi-Ho the Glamorous Life on a Wednesday? We’re finally getting caught up on some back-logged columns before taking a break for the holidays. Enjoy!

‘Tis the season, it seems, for the gender-parity-in-theater discussion to bubble up again, as it does periodically. (As opposed to the gender-parody-in-theater discussion, otherwise known as “Are drag queens misogynistic?”) Here in the Bay Area, a group of female theater-makers called “Yeah, I Said Feminist” is revving up for launch, including developing an award for local theaters that promote gender parity. Meanwhile, Larissa Archer’s hard-hitting Theatre Bay Area article about sexual harassment in theater is causing a stir, and revealing the extent to which theater can still function as a patriarchal boys’ club. And in the UK, the Guardian newspaper is running a series about gender parity in theater, prompted by an all-female production of Julius Caesar that has earned both acclaim and controversy.

Several British theater-makers who have been posting the Guardian articles on Twitter add the caveat, “don’t read the comments section, it’s too depressing.”  It looks like the Guardian moderators have now taken down the most offensive and insulting comments – but many dismissive comments still remain. For instance, one commenter calls Stella Duffy “irrationally angry” because she states that “it hurts, it infuriates to see only men’s names in the list of makers and performers.” (Accusing a woman of being overly emotional? How Victorian.)

Archer, too, has been on the receiving end of criticism for her efforts to investigate sexual harassment in the theater. To begin her inquiry, she conducted an anonymous survey via Theatre Bay Area, and received responses accusing her of having a “schoolteacher mentality” and calling her a “Puritan” who wants to prevent people from talking about sexuality and desire. Perhaps wisely, Archer does not waste energy in trying to argue against these insults; she merely quotes these men, and lets their own words damn them.

But Larissa Archer is an acquaintance of mine, and I’m offended on her behalf. I’m offended that after the feminist movement fought so hard for sexual freedom, the patriarchal assholes in our society are twisting this around and citing sexual freedom as an excuse for their own skeevy behavior. I’m offended that when a woman wants to investigate something like sexual harassment, her motives are seen as suspect. (If a male journalist had written this article, I doubt he would have roused the same ire.) There are comments like this on Duffy’s article, too, to the effect of “you’re just upset your own plays aren’t getting produced, that’s why you’re getting on a high horse about gender parity.”

These people question our motives and insult our work in order to belittle us, and thus to shut us up. But you know what? Why the hell can’t we talk about things that we have a vested interest in? Male journalists have been doing that for centuries! Yes, as a female playwright I may benefit if theaters make more of an effort to produce plays by women; yes, Larissa and I and all women will benefit if sexual harassment becomes a thing of the past. But why should that prevent us from talking about these things?

In a world where women can be subject to such harsh criticism merely for stating their opinions, it can be tempting to hide. Maybe that’s one reason I haven’t discussed feminism or gender parity in my Theater Pub column before this. Although I’ve always been passionate about these topics, perhaps I was afraid of engendering controversy or bringing insults upon myself. It’s also a reason why some female writers are tempted to use male pseudonyms. There’s been idle talk (and even a bit more than talk) among some of my female playwriting friends about whether we wouldn’t be more successful if we submitted our plays under a male name. After all – as Valerie Weak’s “Counting Actors” statistics reveal – only about ¼ of Bay Area theater productions are written by women. Are theaters systematically discriminating against plays with women’s names on them? Would they prefer our work if they thought it was male-authored?

However, though pseudonyms might be a winning strategy in the short term, I’m not sure if it’s good policy in the long run. If I had to take on a male pseudonym to succeed in the theater, I would feel like I was denying or suppressing a fundamental part of myself. Furthermore, I’d feel like I was giving up the fight, admitting defeat — “OK, women can never succeed in this business, so I’ll pretend to be a man.” Great plays and stories have been written about people who conceal or deny their identities in order to find success. But such stories are usually tragedies.

To be sure, one must pick one’s battles. A young female director in the U.K. was quoted as saying that people only took her seriously when she wore jeans and sneakers instead of a dress. I can’t fault her for doing that, and it certainly seems less problematic to change one’s wardrobe than to change one’s name. But at the same time, I believe that a feminism that doesn’t allow women to succeed on their own terms is a hollow kind of feminism. I want to write big, bold, ambitious, opinionated plays. I want them to be produced, with my name — my frilly, feminine name — in large letters on the poster. I want to wear a beautiful dress to opening night, and not have anyone think less of me for it. These sound like reasonable ambitions, don’t they? Too bad we still live in such an unreasonable world.

Marissa Skudlarek is a San Francisco-based playwright, arts writer, and feminist. Find her online at marissabidilla.blogspot.com or on Twitter @MarissaSkud.