On The Perils of Black and White Blackface

I'm doing a piece for Wired News about silent film revivalism and as part of that, I'm interviewing a lot of people who are doing modern-day silent film projects, as either new silent films or silent films reinterpreted as performance art. One of the projects that come under the latter heading is Lulu, a completely silent, black-and-white play based upon Louise Brooks' famous silent masterpiece, Pandora's Box.

I was delighted to speak to Tonnika Todorova, the adorably charming director of Lulu. We conducted an interview, which I'm going to try to transcribe for you guys soon, since very little of it will end up in my Wired News piece. But this one anecdote from Tonnika had me in stitches.

We have one black guy playing Rodigro — the dancer, the acrobat — and we went through a huge nightmare trying to find the right make-up for him because black on his skin wasn't looking right at all. It looked like blackface! And then we came across this gray make-up that was oil based rather than water-based, just like my white actors, which was actually a nightmare, because you couldn't touch it up at all through the show. When he sweat, it would get everyone else, like all the kissing that has to happen with Lulu his make-up would be all over her face. But then we found a beautiful sealing spray that took care of it.

I think they should have just rolled with the gray make-up rubbing off on Lulu. Consider it symbolic of the racial stigma associated in the 1920's with a white woman smooching a black guy!

Lulu [Official Site]