“Half-Blooded Fellow(s)”

This chapter examines recent directorial decisions to uncover a troubling trend: the casting of bi- and multi-racial actors as the bard&s;s “bastards.” Titled, “‘Half-Blooded Fellow(s)&s;: Bastardry and Biracialism in the Shakespeare Industry,” this essay claims actors such as John Macmillan, Matt McCooey, and Howard Charles are disproportionately cast as Edmond in King Lear , Don John in Much Ado about Nothing , and Philip Faulconbridge in King John . Female mixed-race actors are likewise more likely to play characters of dubious parentage, such as Jessica in The Merchant and Perdita in The Winter&s;s Tale . In the Renaissance, of course, “bastards” were conceived as an element which does not fit into the social order and were described terms that, as Mario DiGangi highlights, had “racial implications.” To cast mixed-race actors as “bastards” nowadays risks perpetuating the outsider status of the “betwixt and between” and contributing to disparaging beliefs regarding their legitimacy, morality, and mental stability. However, the casting practice spotlighted in Chapter 4 also prompts reconsideration of certain characters as coded as mixed- race by Shakespeare, thereby expanding the repertoire of racial identities represented in the canon and moving us beyond a Black/White conception thereof.