Othello

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A common theme of modern productions of the play is an emphasis on military life. When Adrian Lester played the role in Nicholas Hytner's 2013 National Theatre production, a retired army veteran was employed to teach the cast about ranks, comportment and off-duty behaviours. [244] Another 21st century trend exemplified by that performance is to reduce the focus of the play on Othello's race by having other parts played by actors of colour also. [245] And a third is an increasing focus on Desdemona's youth and innocence, at the expense of her strength of character. [246] Nina Dunn is an award-winning video and projection designer who has created work for a wide range of shows internationally, working across theatre, opera, dance, musical theatre, immersive, fashion, live events and public art. Act 4, scene 2 Othello questions Emilia about Cassio and Desdemona’s relationship, acting as if Emilia is the mistress of a brothel and Desdemona one of her prostitutes. Othello denounces Desdemona to her face as a whore. Desdemona turns for help to Iago, who reassures her.Roderigo, protesting to Iago that his gifts to Desdemona have won him no favor from her, threatens to ask for the return of the gifts. Iago counters this threat by telling Roderigo that Desdemona will leave for Mauritania with Othello unless Roderigo can delay them. The best way to do this, says Iago, is by killing Cassio. The terminus ad quem for Othello (that is, the latest year in which the play could have been written) is 1604, since a performance of the play in that year is mentioned in the accounts book of Sir Edmund Tilney, then Master of the Revels. [34]

People note exceptional verbal wit, psychological depth, and emotional range of English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, who included such historical works as Richard II, comedies like Much Ado about Nothing, and such tragedies as Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear and also composed 154 sonnets before people published posthumously First Folio, which collected and contained edition of 36 plays in 1623.

Meanwhile, Iago convinces Desdemona to try to get Othello to reinstate Cassio. Iago then uses Desdemona's requests that he be merciful to Cassio to make Othello suspect that Desdemona is cheating on him with Cassio. Othello, takes the bait, repeatedly praising Iago for his honesty. Later, when Desdemona accidentally drops a handkerchief that Othello had given to her as a love-token, Emilia gives it to Iago, who had long asked her to steal it for him. Iago then plants it in Cassio's room. Other adaptations of Shakespeare's story to be filmed include Franco Zeffirelli's 1986 film of Verdi's Otello [282] and the 1956 Jubal which resets the story as a Western, centered on the Cassio character. [283] The play was abridged to 30 minutes by Leon Garfield, and produced with cel animation for the TV series Shakespeare: The Animated Tales. [284] Tim Blake Nelson's basketball-themed teen drama O reset the story at an elite boarding school. The similarity of the film's ending to the Columbine massacre, which happened while the film was being edited, delayed its release for over two years, until August 2001. [285] A British TV adaptation by Andrew Davies, screened in 2001, re-set the story among senior officers of the Metropolitan Police. [286] And the first decade of the 21st-Century saw two non-English language film adaptations: Alexander Abela's French Souli set the story in a modern-day Madagascan fishing village, and Vishal Bhardwaj's Hindi Omkara amidst political violence in modern Uttar Pradesh. [287] Other media [ edit ] Stage adaptations [ edit ] The play has been a popular source for opera. Rossini's 1816 Otello, ossia il Moro di Venezia made Desdemona its focus, and was followed by numerous translations and adaptations, including one with a happy ending. [319] But the most notable version, considered a masterpiece with a power equivalent to that of the play, is Verdi's 1887 Otello, [320] for which Arrigo Boito's libretto marked a return to faithfulness to the original plot, including the reappearance of the pillow as the murder weapon, rather than Ducis' dagger. [321] Scholars have identified many other influences on Othello: things which are not themselves sources but whose impact on Shakespeare can be identified in the play: [7] these include Virgil's Aeneid, [8] Ovid's Metamorphoses, [9] both The Merchant's Tale and The Miller's Tale from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, [10] Geoffrey Fenton's Certaine Tragicall Discourses, [11] [12] Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, [13] George Peele's The Battle of Alcazar, [14] [15] the anonymous Arden of Faversham, [16] Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, [17] and Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness. [18] These also include Shakespeare's own earlier plays Much Ado About Nothing, in which a similar plot was used in a comedy, [19] The Merchant of Venice with its high-born, Moorish, Prince of Morocco, [20] and Titus Andronicus, in which a Moor, Aaron, was a prominent villain, and as such was a forerunner of both Othello and Iago. [21] Portrait of Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Moorish ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, sometimes suggested as the inspiration for Othello. [22]

In addition to his theatrical performances noted above, the play was also central to Konstantin Stanislavski's writings, and to the development of his " system". In particular, the part of Othello is a main subject of his book Creating a Role. [328] In it, the characters of Tortzov, the director, and Kostya, the young actor - both partly autobiographical - rehearse the role of Othello in the opening act. [329] In 1930 Stanislavski directed a production of Othello for the Moscow Art Theatre, which was influential in the development of his system. The performance was directed remotely, by letter, while Stanislavski recovered from illness in France. [222] The scene crowns love triumphant. The formerly self-sufficient Othello has now staked his life to his faith in Desdemona and their union, and she has done the same. The fulfillment of the wedding night that should come at the climax of the comedy is relocated to act 2, with the aftermath of the courtship and the wedding now taking center stage. Having triumphantly bested the social and natural forces aligned against them, having staked all to the devotion of the other, Desdemona and Othello will not be left to live happily ever after, and the tragedy will grow out of the conditions that made the comedy. Othello, unlike the other Shakespearean comedies, adds three more acts to the romantic drama, shifting from comic affirmation to tragic negation. Part of the explosion of the Romantic movement in France was a fashion for re-writing English plays as melodrama, including Alfred de Vigny's 1829 Othello adaptation Le More de Venise. [292]

Those who consider Othello their social and civic peer, such as Desdemona and Brabanzio, nevertheless seem drawn to him because of his exotic qualities. Othello admits as much when he tells the duke about his friendship with Brabanzio. He says, -“[Desdemona’s] father loved me, oft invited me, / Still questioned me the story of my life / From year to year” (I.iii. 127–129). -Othello is also able to captivate his peers with his speech. The duke’s reply to Othello’s speech about how he wooed Desdemona with his tales of adventure is: “I think this tale would win my daughter too” (I.iii. 170). Othello (full title: The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice) is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603. The story revolves around two characters, Othello and Iago. Othello sometimes makes a point of presenting himself as an outsider, whether because he recognizes his exotic appeal or because he is self-conscious of and defensive about his difference from other Venetians. For example, in spite of his obvious eloquence in Act I, scene iii, he protests, “Rude am I in my speech, / And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace” (I.iii. 81–82). While Othello is never rude in his speech, he does allow his eloquence to suffer as he is put under increasing strain by Iago’s plots. In the final moments of the play, Othello regains his composure and, once again, seduces both his onstage and offstage audiences with his words. The speech that precedes his suicide is a tale that could woo almost anyone. It is the tension between Othello’s victimization at the hands of a foreign culture and his own willingness to torment himself that makes him a tragic figure rather than simply Iago’s ridiculous puppet. Roderigo, a wealthy and dissolute gentleman, complains to his friend Iago, an ensign, that Iago has not told him about the recent secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of Brabantio, a senator, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. Roderigo is upset because he loves Desdemona and had asked her father, Brabantio, for her hand in marriage, which Brabantio denied him. Booth was also an acclaimed Iago, and his advice to actors of the role was: "to portray Iago properly you must seem to be what all the characters think and say you are, not what the spectators know you to be; try to win even them by your sincerity. Don't act the villain." [219]

Othello is a Moorish military commander who was serving as a general of the Venetian army in defence of Cyprus against invasion by Ottoman Turks. He has recently married Desdemona, a beautiful and wealthy Venetian lady younger than himself, without the knowledge of and despite the later objection of her father. Iago is Othello's malevolent ensign, who maliciously stokes his master's jealousy until the usually stoic Moor kills his beloved wife in a fit of blind rage. Due to its enduring themes of passion, jealousy, and race, Othello is still topical and popular and is widely performed, with numerous adaptations. Maguire, Laurie " Othello, Theatre Boundaries, and Audience Cognition" in Orlin, Lena Cowen (ed.) "Othello - The State of Play" The Arden Shakespeare, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014, pp.17-43 at p.34. Ultimately, Othello becomes persuaded that his honour is tarnished by his wife's unfaithfulness and can only be restored through Desdemona's and Cassio's deaths. [67] And this – a code of behaviour no longer considered valid – is one reason why modern critics rarely regard Othello among Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. [68] Race [ edit ]Shakespeare's source story in Cinthio takes place entirely in the long time scheme: Shakespeare appears to have introduced the shorter time scheme to increase dramatic tension, while also introducing moments where Iago's plot could fall apart – for example if Emilia had given an honest answer to Desdemona's "Where should I lose that handkerchief?" [177] or if Roderigo had chosen to denounce Iago. [178]