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Page 71 despite the white-faced English actors’ best efforts, their costume and demeanor were “contrary to the simple habiliments, the erect attitude, and the graceful walk, not only of the Moors of Africa, but of those by whom we are everyday waited on and surrounded” (370). The reviewer’s concern about correctness of ethnic representation is premised on an implicit surveillance of minute racial distinctions. The author of this review is effectively talking about the performance of colonial authenticity in the colony—the premise that the Native of the colony ought to be represented as the “Native.” It is of no concern that the actor performing the character is actually an Englishman. The concern is for the “authenticity” of the representation. The Moor is to carry himself like those “by whom we are everyday waited on and surrounded” and yet have the ‘‘erect attitude, and the graceful walk” becoming to the stereotypical Moor. It is also interesting to note the thrust to homogenize by the collapsing of the Moor with the Asiatic Mohammedan, North Africa with India, colony with colony. The question, then, becomes: who is the “real” Moor? Does the colonial idea of the Moor, then, make him real and grant him performative corporeality? Other “Moors” appeared on the stages of Calcutta’s English theaters in the early nineteenth century, evoking similar concerns about racial typologies and distinctions. In 1822, white actors played “Moors” in a production of The Mountaineers at the Dum Dum Theatre, which according to the January 18 Calcutta Journal, contained “representations of the race that occupied Granada at the period of the history described” (1822:189). The critic notes positively that the “whole of the Moorish department of the piece, in music, scenery, dress, processions, etc. was well got and well supported, doing equal credit to the liberality and good taste of the managers,” but once again, it was the problem of authenticity. The critic describes two characters as follows: Zorayda had great bashfulness and timidity, though her complexion prevented our seeing the blushes which usually accompany these in the Fair Sex. Bulcazin Muley, her worthy, was well dressed, and well coloured; the only defect we remarked was the busy ringlets and side whiskers, neither of which were ever worn by the Moors, we believe, as they shave their heads, and either have full beards or mustachios on the upper lip only. (189) The chance to make a dig at the impossibility of the darker Moorish pigmentation representing the red-cheeked bashfulness of |
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