Honestly, I think the play would gain if they added racism as additional reason for the enmity between the 2 families. I’d be astonished if this hasn’t happened before.

Personally,

Do you feel equally uneasy when you watch old movies in which white actors portray non-white characters?

Holy shit, yes. I don't always notice it, but when I do, it absolutely makes me uncomfortable.

Or what about fiction, like "The Hunger Games," in which Katniss is described as "olive-skninned" in the book, but was played by Jennifer Lawrence?

I've always understood "olive-skinned" to refer to people from the European Mediterranean area, which, from an American perspective, are often considered white. As such, it doesn't really bother me that much. However, if the author meant for her to be middle-eastern or northern African, then yeah, that does kinda make me a bit uncomfortable.

Have you ever expressed your discomfort at the portrayals of Jesus as a white dude with blue eyes all over the place?

I grew up with blue-eyed Jesus so it doesn't bother me because I'm used to it. If I was used to seeing black or middle-eastern Jesus, then yeah, I'd be uncomfortable with it. As it is, I'm more amused by the fact that Christians can't get it right than I am uncomfortable with it.

Tbh when it comes to this specific example, I don't really care. I generally think it's better to cast characters as they were originally intended (black characters should be black people, queer characters should be queer people, etc), though I also understand that sometimes exceptions have to be made. I'm mainly replying because I wanted to chime in and say, "hey, not everyone who thinks characters should be cast in accordance with their original race, sex, gender, etc, is a bigot."

Or at least I don't think of myself as one. Maybe I still have things to work on though.

Edit: tbh I think a lot of these kinds of casting choices are rage-bait. They're not doing it because they want to give minorities more opportunities to perform, they're doing it because it generates free advertising. Because of that, I honestly wonder if it's doing more harm than good.

I see your point, but it is also a little weird when a previously established black character is made white, or at least less black, in the casting. Apparently during TMNT's grimdark period, before the cartoon, their April O'Neil was bi-racial. Baxter Stockman was black, but when the TMNT cartoon came out in 1987, both were white.

I wasn't familiar with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles until the very kid-friendly cartoon, so it didn't bother me. I mean, this was my first introduction to these characters, right? I had no idea. But fast forward to now, when it's very strongly canon that Baxter Stockman is black, and the 1987 Baxter Stockman, who's a hybrid of Dr. Brown from Back to the Future and Jeff Goldblum's bug in The Fly, does seem a little... off.

In the Earthsea miniseries almost every character is played by a white actor while all but one in the book are black.

The one white character, Tenar, is played by a half-chinese actress.

Do you feel equally uneasy when you watch old movies in which white actors portray non-white characters?

I am not aware of anyone close to my age bracket that watches old movies like that, and I am not young. I would imagine a good chunk of us would avoid them all together, considering that we know that the movies were racist. I know I do, at least.

Like, I don't care if anyone says Othello is worth watching, I would simply refuse to give it a chance.