ABSTRACT

In September 2012, the British East Asian actor, writer and director, Daniel York, alerted me to emerging discussions about the cross-racial casting of the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) production of The Orphan of Zhao. The activities and achievements of individuals who mobilised this protest should not be underplayed, but this chapter shows how their practices and alliances set The Orphan of Zhao in a transnational field that questioned the RSC and threatened its reputation as a global brand. The volume of information on The Orphan of Zhao controversy makes a complete analysis of all the debates a larger task than what the chapter ables to achieve here, and so the chapter provides an overview of the protest and its main points of contention. Protests also draw attention to the spatiality of performance as it literally takes place, emphasising the material politics and histories of different sites.