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Chris Grace promises at the top of his one-hour comedy and social commentary piece, Chris Grace: As Scarlett Johansson, which opened May 11 in the Ellyn Bye Studio at Portland Center Stage, that he will solve racism 27 minutes into the show. Then, later, when that moment is long gone, he asks the audience if we caught it. The fix for racism, unfortunately, cannot be caught, at least not in this cultural climate.
In 2017, Johansson infamously responded to criticism of her portrayal of an Asian woman in Ghost in the Shell that she “should be allowed to play any person, tree or animal.” With action-star aplomb, Grace—best known for his work on TV shows like Superstore and Netflix’s new murder mystery series The Residence—tackles racism to the ground as he portrays the straight white woman who can play any tree. With accessible humor and pertinent commentary about how Hollywood (shorthand for everyone) continues to push people of color out of the spotlight. Then he “hero poses,” and the show begins again.
This time it’s Scarlett Johansson as Chris Grace as Scarlett Johansson. Then the show restarts, complete with preshow thanks to our sponsors, a pattern which repeats several times before it all comes crashing down. This fourth wall-breaking meta-folding on top of itself has the illusion of standing between two mirrors, seeing double for the length of an infinity war until Grace finally breaks the pattern.
Chris Grace: As Scarlett Johansson isn’t just standup comedy, though it very much is that. It is not a biography or autobiography, though Grace weaves his story and Johansson’s together into knots. It is not just about Grace’s identity as a fat Asian American gay actor in an industry that doesn’t know what to do with that type of “triple threat,” as he jokingly calls it.
And it’s not just a critique of the Oscar-nominated actress. Grace tells WW over the phone is not a hit piece but “more of a tribute.”
“I say in the show that the goal of the show is to make the show irrelevant,” he says. “It’s not impossible that there might be a time where the issues in the show are antiquated in terms of what’s happening in our society, but I definitely don’t think this is one of those times.”
Grace isn’t the first person to come for Johansson’s acting choices, but he may be the first to “embody” the actress for the purpose of doing so. In the final moments of the show, Grace begs for one year to pass in which a white actor doesn’t appear in a role written for or, more appropriately, played by an actor of color. Then, he holds himself accountable for his own parts in the systems of oppression—most coincidentally that Rupert Sanders, director of Ghost in the Shell, once directed him in a commercial that made it possible for him to pay his bills.
The show vacillates between laugh-out-loud funny and deeply uncomfortable, which is by design. While Grace says that you don’t need to be familiar with Ghost in the Shell to enjoy or understand his portrayal of Johansson’s transgressions in it, he warns that people have been surprised by the show’s visuals. However, the discomfort comes from being in a mostly (if not entirely) white audience in a very white city, while an actor of color starkly and honestly calls attention to the easy way society claims that “anyone can be anything” while continuing to ignore that equality is not equity. Just because Johansson can play a comic book character written to be Japanese, does not mean she should. Acknowledging Portland’s whiteness isn’t enough to fix the problems that arise from our overall lack of diversity.
Johansson isn’t the only white actor who has been cast in a role they shouldn’t be playing, not by a long shot. When I asked Grace if he’d ever embody any other white actors who assume cross-race roles, he said he would on two conditions.
“One: if I had something really cogent to say about those specific people,” Grace says. “Two: I would absolutely do it if they keep taking those roles. At some point they should stop. So I guess I’ll keep doing comedy shows until they stop.”
SEE IT: Chris Grace: As Scarlett Johansson at Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th Ave., 503-445-3700, pcs.org. 2 and 7:30 pm Wednesday and Saturday, May 21, 24 and 28; 2 pm Sunday, May 25; 7:30 pm May 22, 23, 28, 30 and 31. $25–$54.