Introduction: Shakespeare, Blackface and Performance. A Global Perspective

Abstract

When we were invited in 2019 by the editors of Multicultural Shakespeare to guest edit a special issue on a topic that would be of international significance, we did not have to think very hard or long, as the request aligned with one of our main research interests: racism, blackface and performance. Shakespearean performances have employed racial prosthetics since the Elizabethan period, but the intervening 400 years since Shakespeare’s lifetime have seen the symbolic, social, and performance meanings of blackface and its relation to xenophobia, institutional racism and populism change. Over the past years these topics have gained even more significance and worldwide attention, and 2020 accelerated interests in systemic racism and the histories and performances that foster and enable its perpetuation. The brutal murder of George Floyd in May 2020 inspired even more urgent calls for analyses of systemic, anti-black racism. As the mission of Multicultural Shakespeare (formerly Shakespeare Worldwide) aims to broaden scholarly perspectives beyond an Anglophone approach, we sent out a call for papers inviting scholars to analyse specific uses of blackface in both local and global contexts across the world. We were particularly interested in essays that would explore specific political, social, and cultural issues regarding institutional racism and their relations to blackface traditions both inside and outside the theatre. Interest in this topic has increased over the past decades and is currently accelerating and deepening, with recent and forthcoming publications on the subject not only moving beyond the Anglophone context but also aiming to contextualise the interactions between institutional racism, blackface, performance and the socio-political context (Heijes, 2020; Valls-Russell and Sokolova, 2021; Thompson, 2021a, Thompson, 2021b). When we launched our call for papers for this special issue of Multicultural Shakespeare, we had no idea that so many authors would submit their papers. The international interest in blackface revealed just how pervasive