Rare Earth Mettle, Royal Court from 10th Nov

Also looking forward to this, we had tickets for it before Covid so was extra pleased it has made a comeback.

Most def. It feels like a smart strategy to me, as well. Different options  >>

royalcourttheatre.com/support-us/individual-support/join-as-a-friend/

The Royal Court being hypocritical racists. Must be a day ending in Y.

I find it amazing that (presumably) no-one flagged this up during the production process as problematic, especially given the Royal Court's previous controversies in this area.

Jewish names all over Hollywood, both sides of the screen. This was about a stereotypical portrayal of a Jewish character so clearly identified by the name and portrayed as money grabbing and so on. I haven't seen the play. Have you, londonpostie? But we all know what the complaints are about and you are being somewhat disingenuous. 

lynette you are mistaken. It's not a Jewish character.

He's like Elon Musk, apparently. The name Fink references the dictionary definition, which is pretty much how many see Musk. I'm sure people can be offended if they really need to me offended, it also looks like a characterisation of Elon Musk as much of the world see's him, using a dictionary definition.

Since all names have some sort of ethnic or religious origin/link, what happens if the playwright changes the name & then there are complaints from people from whichever ethnic group the character has been changed to? Is it going to get to the stage where villains will all have to be named Mr/Ms X, to avoid any possible offence?

I don't think so.  Jack Reacher is a name I don't think caused controversy, and the surname could be said to be a comment on the character's qualities.  (I haven't seen the film though).  Things go wrong sometimes, but writers will mostly be fine.  This is unfortunate but no malevolence involved.

The character wasn’t called Peter. Ludicrous false comparison. He was named the most stereotypically Jewish, absolutely 100% Jewish-coded name there is, for a character (“the evil hook-nosed money grubber who secretly controls the world”) that’s basically a great big walking Antisemitic Stereotype 101.

That’s like saying a character who spends every scene getting drunk and randomly blowing up things with petrol bombs who happens to be named Seamus O’Leprechaun absolutely isn’t an Irish character and how could any Irish person possibly be offended because clearly it’s nothing to do with Ireland or Irish people.


FYI multiple people including actual Jewish people raised concerns and complaints about this during the play’s long journey to the stage, and were overruled and shut down. They knew. They were absolutely aware it was a name that screams “THIS CHARACTER IS JEWISH” and refused to listen to Jewish people’s complaints for months until it turned into a social media scandal.

We're not in a uniquely critiquing time for culture or writers. I'm thinking of a play in which the writer rewrote an Irish character that audiences found to be conceived as crudely thick, and the writer (Irish himself) apologised and said of himself and the audience view: "he may rely upon the justness of the comment"

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 'The Rivals'. The character was Sir Lucius O'Trigger - 'loose trigger' being signification of hothead in the name. The name stayed, but the character was modified.

1775.

I don’t comment on this site much but I’m Jewish and I have been upset by this all day. It’s not the name itself that’s a problem, it’s the name which is, whatever googling people want to do, very very clearly Jewish, being attached to every antisemitic trope in the planet about Jewish people being avaricious, money-grabbing, ‘stealing indigenous land’, I can go on but the trailer from the play in the context of a clearly intended Jewish character (and no, I don’t for a split second believe their ‘but the character isn’t Jewish, thing - Herschel Fink isn’t a dog whistle, it’s a dog foghorn) is very uncomfortable viewing and to me, screams racism .

What hurts more is the Royal Court fluffing on about what great work they are doing on anti-racism while clearly showing contempt and ignorance of the Jewish community at a time of rising antisemitism. It’s not cancel culture. They can change the name - and could have at any point in the process - without changing the play and it wouldn’t have been an issue. The same play with a name that didn’t scream ‘this is a Jewish man’, wouldn’t have the same connotations because they wouldn’t link to centuries old tropes.

I’m sad it has to be spelt out like this. I’m off again to lurking for a few more years

And just to add - thank you so much to those who have spoken out. It has been a bit grim being Jewish over the last few years in particular and I have stopped expecting people to ‘get it’ so I am really really grateful to those who do and have spoken up