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Topic:
The Shakespeare Discussion Thread
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KissMeImARebel
Registered:
Nov '03
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Date Posted:
11/28/06 7:26pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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I don't know why, but I'm not a huge fan of Othello.
Maybe it's because there's no one I could really root for. Othello is so easily turned against Desdemona that I can't feel too bad for him. And as a result, I can't appreciate Iago's craftiness, because it doesn't seem like he really earned it. I sorta feel for Desdemona, but Shakespeare has never been that great at fleshing out his women - there are exceptions, but Desdemona isn't one of them IMHO. I feel for Cassio, but that's not enough to rope me in.
But I do like the themes - the treatment of race still resonates today - and not just because it's a black/white situation: stereotypes and many forms of racism (and other anti-group x) are common themes in the past and the present.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/6/06 12:18pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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I haven't seen Olivier's version, but I heard he tried a Caribbean accent (!)
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JediNemesis
Registered:
Mar '03
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Date Posted:
12/6/06 5:38pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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Thanks for moving the thread on guys ... afraid I'm largely internetless at the moment.
Now . . . Othello . . .
Possibly my favourite play y the Bard, full stop. But the title character has nothing to do with it; Othello himself is like any number of other characters (I'm thinking Claudio from Much Ado, only older and black). What makes the play is Iago. There's no villain to touch him in the Shakespeare canon; even Richard III is brought further towards the understandable because he's got a motive. Aaron from Titus Andronicus is a bit of a comedy turn - he's so far over the top - but Iago is like some figure from a morality play, representing baseless, motiveless evil. Forgive me if I go on a bit  But he's such a wonderful character to play; a genius-level intellect combined with a childish ability to hold petty grudges and a taste for sordid revenge. His language through the play is littered with bestial and vulgar imagery - he's got one hell of a sick imagination, and it shows.
Olivier did attempt a Caribbean Othello; personally I'm more intrigued by his take on Iago. IIRC, his was one of the first interpretations to play Iago's motive as repressed desire for Othello himself. (Well, the text does stand up to that reading, so it's valid.) If anyone knows more about that, or if I'm wrong, please say  For my money, the best production I've seen (on video) was the RSC of 1988 - Willard White as Othello, Imogen Stubbs as Desdemona, and Sir Ian McKellen himself as Iago. It chills the blood. Watch it if you can.
darkmole, if you want to brainstorm Othello, drop me a PM - I am picking them up and I can give you my email - I did Othello for my high school finals, last year, and I know the play pretty much back to front. In said final exam our question was on Iago, as well, and I got 96% in my Eng Lit paper so it must have been okay 
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/13/06 12:35pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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Have you seen Welles' "Othello"? The good performance appears to have been Desdemona (Suzanne Clouthier).
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darkmole
Registered:
Jul '00
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Date Posted:
12/13/06 10:24pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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I've got it on video but haven't watched it yet. I'm looking forward to it. A few years ago Patrick Stewart played a white Othello. The last good production I saw was in Manchester, with Andy Serkis (Gollum) as a slimy Iago.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/20/06 11:01pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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Patrick Stewart seems like better casting for Iago.
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darkmole
Registered:
Jul '00
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Date Posted:
12/21/06 4:39am
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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Indeed. The idea was that everyone else in the cast was black, so the racial politics were (ironically) inverted. I didn't see it myself, I'm curious to know if it worked or not.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/24/06 10:17pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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What a very bizarre idea.
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Rogue1-and-a-half
Title: Manager: Amphitheatre
Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
12/25/06 7:06pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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In the intervening years, just about every weird thing that could be done with Shakespeare has been. At least once.
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JediNemesis
Registered:
Mar '03
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Date Posted:
12/26/06 2:50am
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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Apparently it was okay, if not as awesomely groundbreaking as everyone made it out to be.
Rogue, I'd take issue with that 'everything'. Though I agree on principle. However, I'd love to see an Othello where Iago is played as mixed-race - being white to the Venetians and black to Othello, and so trusted by everyone.
Or - this one only came to me recently - a version set in colonial-era Australia; the colonists needed Aboriginal guides, because the country's pretty inhospitable, so cast Othello as the mistrusted but indispensable 'general' to a bunch of English colonists and voila. Roderigo would obviously be a convict (some stupid crime like stealing a handkerchief) and, who knows, maybe Iago too; a man who claims to have wholly repented for his offence and is given a trusted place in the colony's administration . . . but not too trusted, because he has to liaise with the filthy natives. Okay, maybe I've thought this through a little too far, but it's got potential
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
1/5/07 12:42pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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Othello's supposed to be a Moor, so he's an Arab, or so I always thought. Though the point is his cultural displacement, I suppose.
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JediNemesis
Registered:
Mar '03
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Date Posted:
1/5/07 3:39pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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The term 'Moor' tended to be used pretty much indiscriminately, although the word originated to mean North African (I'm wondering if it's cognate with 'Morocco' and 'Maurus' [Latin, 'of Morocco']).
Queen Elizabeth I once expressed her discontent at "the great number of negars and blackamoors that are crept into the realm", which suggests that there was some kind of distinction worth drawing between 'negro' and 'Moor'. But again, some of Iago's insults seem to imply one image, some the other.
Othello's usually been played as, well, 'black', rather than Arab, for whatever reason. Although before the advent of genuinely black actors, Arab interpretations were far more common; I guess it was easier just to get a tan and wear a turban than black up fully . . .
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
1/14/07 12:16pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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I suspect the reason that Olivier's "Othello" isn't much shown these days is that he does it in blackface, which is politically incorrect with a vengence these days.
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darkmole
Registered:
Jul '00
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Date Posted:
1/15/07 7:57am
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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It's not one of his better films either, and it's quite dated. Orson Welles did a pretty good Othello film as well. Othello is close to Hamlet and R&J for being one of the most frequently filmed and adapted of Shakespeare's plays.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
1/22/07 12:43pm
Subject:
RE: The Shakespeare Thread: Now Disc. "Othello"
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"MacBeth" not so much, but on the stage, and I guess on the screen, too, it's considered unlucky.
I can remember only two: Polanski and Kurosawa.
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