Continuing with our grand survey of Shakespearean plays, so far we’ve studied Shakespeare’s background, sonnets, Julius Caesar, Henry V, madnesses of Richard III and Hamlet, the similarities of As You Like It and Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, and Much ado about Nothing.
After a Shakespearean interlude at the dentist, Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter had so infused my thoughts, that my latest Homeschool Mother’s Weekly Journal featured The Bard.
Next from our Shakespeare collection was Othello, also known as The Moor of Venice, which we began with annotations of literary elements.
Set in 1570 Venice and Cyprus, this tragedy is a tale of manipulation and suspicion.
19TH CENTURY ADAPTATION
The movie version I found was a 1989 stage production by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the used bookstore.
Set in 1870 Cyprus, four hundred years later than the original storyline, the play was extremely dark in tone for this deep tragedy.
Thankfully we watched it in the middle of the day, so we didn’t have to have the ending the last thing on our minds when we fell asleep.
PRODUCTION NOTES
For the last production at Stratford-upon-Avon’s The Other Place, the Royal Shakespeare Company performed Othello.
On his website Ian McKellan who portrayed Iago, recalls that upon the announcement of the play at that location:
the management hesitated, even though the renowned opera baritone Willard White was to make his dramatic debut as the Moor. It was rumoured that Nunn paid for the stage production and eventually for part of the costs to make a video version. Playing Iago would be a return to my partnership with Nunn at the same address where we had done Macbeth 13 years before. With scarcely 100 seats, it was an appropriate theatre for a play which is invariably domestic and where claustrophobia can contribute to the effect.
Iago is an easy part to bring off and rarely fails to impress. I am not the first to realise that there is no need to act the underlying falsity of the man rather to play “honest Iago” on all occasions. “Do not smile or sneer or glower — try to impress even the audience with your sincerity”: Edwin Booth. As Iago confides the truth to the audience (as always in Shakespeare), they are privy to his deceit and the gulling of Roderigo, Cassio, Desdemona and Othello himself. It is an unfair advantage and early on Willard accused me of trying to get the audience on my side against him. I explained that I didn’t need to try — Shakespeare had organised it that the villain’s part should be the audience’s portal into the action.
