Kenneth Tynan: a riposte to Equity
EQUITY UK, THE ACTORS’ UNION, is now handing out advice to theatre critics, and it is advice backed up by considerable menace.
In a list of “guidelines” issued last month “to ensure the work of theatre critics is of the highest quality”, Equity follows a formula we’re now used to from elsewhere. Having assured critics that they’re “free to express themselves openly and honestly without fear or favour”, it then goes on to bind them with the chains and padlocks of numerous caveats.
Reviews must be written, the edict goes on, “with sensitivity, empathy and understanding”. Critics must “acknowledge their cultural power and use it responsibly”. They should “define people as they would define themselves”, “use current and inclusive language” and “consider their own potential for bias and/or relative privilege when evaluating a production”. These new guidelines presumably come in the wake at the RSC in 2018. In it, Letts argued that Leo Wringer, an actor of colour, had failed to convince as a country squire and complained about the RSC’s “clunking approach to politically correct casting”.
