37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 19: Othello

Yup, that’s Anthony Hopkins in (light) blackface as Othello!  The most infamous episode.  (Okay, folks, this series has taken way too long.  I now plan to do one every Friday until we’re done.)  

Othello, first broadcast October 4th, 1981

• Possibly written: Sometime around 1604 or 1605, possibly his 27th play.
• What’s it about? Othello, a Black Moor, has earned a place in the Venetian military, marries Desdemona the daughter of a senator, and appoints Cassio to an office that another officer named Iago wanted. Iago gets his revenge by convincing Othello that Desdemona cheated on him with Cassio. Othello kills Desdemona, then himself. Iago’s role is exposed but he lives, being dragged off in chains.
• Most famous dialogue: Many candidates:
• “Your daughter and the moor are now making the beast with two backs”
• A line I often say about my empty wallet: “Who steals my purse, steals trash.”
• “Tis the green-eyed monster”
• “Then you must speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well.”
• Sources: A tale in the story collection “Gli Ecatommiti” by Giovanni Battista Giraldi, better known as Cinthio
• Best insult: Not a lot of great insults! Surprisingly, Othello never really lets go on Desdemona when he believes he is deceived. The best one is when Iago’s wife sums up men: “They are all but stomachs and we all but food”
• Best word: exsufflicate
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: I studied the play in college but I’ve just seen the Larry Fishburne film before this. I’d like to make it to Broadway next year to see Denzel Washington and Jack Gyllenhaal as Othello and Iago.
• Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Bob Hoskins is Iago. It took me a long time to recognize Desdemona: She’s Penelope Wilton from Doctor Who and Downton Abbey. I finally realized I’d seen her before from recognizing the way she pursed her lips. Othello, tragically, is played by Anthony Hopkins. Cedric Messina, director of the first two seasons, originally wanted to bring over James Earl Jones from America, but the British film unions (famous for being assholes) threatened to strike if any non-British actors were brought in, so the production was cancelled. Instead, it launches the fourth season, the second with Jonathan Miller as showrunner, and Miller declared the play had nothing to do with race, and so cast Hopkins.

How’s the cast?

• Hopkins is, of course, one of the greatest actors of all time. It’s shameful that he was given this part rather than a Black actor, and I desperately wish they had recorded Jones in the part, but it’s undeniable that Hopkins does an amazing job. (If he’s wearing any blackface, it’s just a little bronzer, but still inexcusable) Hoskins as Iago is even better. His Iago is constantly bitterly amused by himself, and his uncontrollable laughter (the last thing we hear in the play) is truly terrifying. Wilton, who I’m used to in much older roles, is heartbreaking as a pessimistic young Desdemona.

How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?

• Miller, in addition to his deplorable decision to cast Hopkins, makes other bizarre decisions. Much of the dialogue is inaudible, including Desdemona’s final speech. The dress, as we’ve seen in his other productions, is nonsensically Elizabethan. The whole thing runs too long at three hours and twenty-four minutes. But Miller is great with the actors and the staging and lighting are excellent.

Rulebook Casefile: Speak to the National Pain of 400 Years Later

Modern productions of “The Merchant of Venice” try to rescue the mildly-sympathetic character of Shylock, but I found him to be a vicious racial caricature, reeking of Shakespeare’s ignorant prejudice towards Jewish people. And I found “The Taming of the Shrew” to be unforgivably misogynist. So why does “Othello”, which is also about a group that was despised at the time, work so well? Why does it, unlike those two plays, get no protestations when it is produced today? Why are they about to do it on Broadway with Denzel Washington?

Because it’s a brilliant play, and Shakespeare, astoundingly, creates a fully human portrait of a Black man despite the fact that he’s writing in 1603. It’s a part every Black actor considers himself lucky to get to play today. He’s truly noble at times, though he does eventually prove to be a menace.

Of course, one of the reasons he’s so great is that he can be played many different ways. As with all of Shakespeare’s greatest characters, directors and actors have a tremendous amount of leeway when deciding how sympathetic to make him. He can be played as either a violent man whose true nature comes out, or a non-violent man who gets pushed to violence that is totally against his nature. (But even if you play him as having a violent nature, it somehow never feels like that would be an example of a prejudice Shakespeare has against Black men.)

I had the misfortune of taking my college Shakespeare course with a professor who flat-out didn’t like Shakespeare and was teaching the course under duress. She made many bizarre pronouncements, but the oddest was when we were studying this play in 1995 and she said that it had nothing to say about our modern world. 

I was gobsmacked. 

I said, “Oh yes, a Black man succeeds in the martial arena, earns a place among his white masters, marries a white woman, becomes convinced she’s cheating on him, beats her in front of everybody which they all choose to ignore, finally kills her and attempts to kill the man he falsely thinks she’s cheating with, then attempts suicide. Yes, that has nothing to do with anything that’s going on right now.”

Of course, the big difference between Othello and O.J. Simpson is that Othello is meant to maintain our sympathy, whereas, aside from 12 jurors, O.J. largely did not. But does Othello deserve our sympathy? Unlike O.J., Othello is the victim of a vicious, brilliant, overwhelming deception engineered by one man, and that makes him more sympathetic, but does that really excuse Othello’s actions?  Every wife killer, in his own mind, has his reasons.

It’s interesting that racial prejudice is not a prime motivating factor in the play, though it’s always, of course, bubbling under the surface. Iago tells Roderigo that his primary motivation is that he was passed up for promotion, not a hatred of the idea of interracial marriage, and even Desdemona’s father says he’s more upset at being deceived than the possibility of miscegenation, but Miller’s contention that the play has nothing to do with race is absurd. Right at the beginning, Iago and Roderigo are mocking Desdemona’s father with racial language: “What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe If he can carry ’t thus!” and “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.” Racial hatred is everywhere under the surface, but Othello, like O.J., has earned such a place of esteem in the white world that no one speaks openly of it.

Rulebook Casefile: Not the Way the World Works

Let’s talk about the most bizarre aspect of this play. Desdemona is choked to death in her bed, not once but twice. Othello wanders off and leaves her there. Iago’s wife Emilia finds her. Desdemona then utters some final words to Emilia before she dies. That’s not how choking works! If someone tries to choke you, then leaves, then you can still speak five minutes later, you’re going to be fine! Choking kills you off while you’re being choked or not at all. There’s no lingering death. The only way this would make sense is if he stabs her, and I think that it could be staged that way, but it seemingly never is. It totally takes me out of the play! Directors must find a way to fix it.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: The Promise and Peril of Downtime

As I say above, the production runs way too long at 3 hours and 24 minutes, but, if you’re going to bother to produce all 37 plays for posterity, there’s a case to be made for cutting nothing. One of the most fascinating scenes is one that I’m sure most productions cut, where Desdemona and Emilia somewhat idly prepare for bed and Desdemona, like Nicole Simpson to Faye Resnick 400 years later, makes clear to her friend that she knows she will be killed before long. 

It’s a languidly paced scene: Desdemona has a song stuck in her head and keeps murmuring it as she goes about her nighttime routine, then it occurs to her to mention something else and continue the conversation. It’s a momentum killer, but it’s a brilliantly written scene in its own rite. Downtime is one of the hardest things to write because it kills storytelling momentum, but, if you’ve got a very indulgent director who’s in no hurry, it can make for beautifully written, heartbreaking scenes.