STAGING in Othello

Staging 1:  Janet Suzman Stages Othello

Staging 2:  Iago

Staging 3:  Iago Tempts Othello

Staging 4:  Race and Sensuality

Staging 5:  Imagine and Interpret

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Staging 1: Janet Suzman Stages Othello

Janet Suzman directed the play for the Market Theater Company in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1988.  Although the play was staged during apartheid and would therefore be politically explosive racially, the production also includes a strong interest in the women's roles. Although copyright laws prohibit much excerpting, you can see major scenes in the video clips below.

Othello leaves for Cyprus (3,900 K)

Iago plots against Othello (7.3MB)

Iago tempts Othello to jealousy (11.5MB)

Emilia and Desdemona discuss adultery (8.5MB)

Othello prepares to kill Desdemona (2.9MB)

Emilia confronts Othello (14.7MB)

A.  What is Othello's character?  Why does he believe Iago?  Why and how does he kill Desdemona--and then himself? Support your view not only with the text, but also with the stage business, blocking, costuming and setting from Suzman's production.

B.  If we think of the play as Emilia's story, what is the change in her--from what? through what? to what?

C.  How do you evaluate Iago? 

To respond to Questions 1 on Staging, copy the question into a word processor, write your response and then submit it as indicated by your instructor.

Staging 2: Iago

The way a director brings a scene to life conveys an interpretation to the viewer--through casting, costuming and make-up, setting and stage business. If you read the play before seeing a production, you may be surprised when you find the staging different than the one you imagined in your mind while reading. For example, consider the different Iagos in the following excerpts:

Frank Finlay's Iago (1965 production with Laurence Olivier as Othello) 4MB

Richard Haddon Haines' Iago (1988 production with John Kani as Othello) 7.3MB

Kenneth Branagh's Iago (1995 production with Laurence Fishburne as Othello) 8.4MB

Justino Diaz's Iago (with Placido Domingo as Othello in Franco Zeffirelli's production of Verdi's opera Otello) 22.6MB (Click here for translation.)

A.  For one clip, compare the part of the scene shown to the play text in your book.  What lines are left out?

B.  For both clips, copy the text of the play (by clicking on Text in the heading) into a word processor.  Then play the movie clip and note what actions (stage business) and props are used.  Write these in using capital letters in the text copy. What impression of Iago do you think the director is trying to convey?

C.  What is the difference between the two presentations?  And how do you think this would affect your estimate of Othello's blameworthiness?  

To respond to Question 2 on Staging, copy the question into a word processor, write your response and then submit it as indicated by your instructor.

Staging 3: Iago Tempts Othello

Directors can produce different effects and interpretations by the way actors deliver their lines and respond to their setting. Costuming also plays a part. In filmed or videotaped productions, the audience is also affected by the kinds of shots (long, medium, close-up) and their length, and by the sounds and musical background.

Question 3: What different impressions are produced in the three clips (of the scene in which Iago drops hints about Desdemona's faithfulness) listed below?  

1952 film starring Orson Welles and Micheal MacLiammoir (6.7MB)

A.  For each clip, compare the part of the scene shown to the play text in your book.  What lines are left out?

B.  For both clips, copy the text of the play (by clicking on Text in the heading) into a word processor.  Then play the movie clip and note what actions (stage business) and props are used. Write these in using capital letters in the text copy. What impression of Iago do you think the director is trying to convey? For example, what are the inner thoughts of Othello and how are these conveyed to you?

C.  What is the difference between the two presentations of Othello's temptation to jealousy?  How does each affect your willingness to blame Othello?

To respond to Question 3 on Staging, copy the question into a word processor, write your response and then submit it as indicated by your instructor.

Staging 4: Sensuality and Race

A production is a collaboration between actors and audience in a particular place and time.  A director may decide to present an interpretation, but the casting influences how that interpretation is conveyed.  The audience brings their own views and a cultural history to their perception.  

For example, Othello says to Desdemona as they leave the Duke's Palace:  

I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matter, and direction
To spend with thee.  We must obey the time.(1.3.293-95)

William Marshall, an African-American actor,  appears in a filmed stage version (1985) which suggests he spends the next hour packing and making lists. (1 MB)

And in Suzman's 1988 production, where do you think the South African actor, John Kani, will spend the next hour with his Desdemona? (3.9MB)

Question 4: After reviewing the video clips listed above, write on one of the topics listed below:

A.  The staging: For one of the clips, discuss how the impression is created that the next hour will be spent either in lovemaking or in packing.  What difference does this impression make on your assessment in the rest of the play?

B.  The race of the actor:  Explain why the race of the actor does or does not matter, by discussing the impression made upon you by a black and a white Othello in these clips (or in the temptation of Othello in Staging 3).

C.  Cultural attitudes:  Is Othello's jealousy affected by sensuality?  He says he is too old to be ruled by lust and only wants Desdemona to accompany him to be "free and bounteous to her mind" (1.3). Can a sensual Othello be noble?  Discuss how you think cultural perceptions of male sensuality affect the impression a production makes by comparing and contrasting two clips.

To respond to Question 4 on Staging, copy the question into a word processor, write your response and then submit it as indicated by your instructor.

With cross-racial casting, new acting opportunities are opening to black actors (such as Denzel Washington playing Don Pedro in Kenneth Branagh's recent film of Much Ado about Nothing ).

Question 5: Consider how the attitude toward black people may have made a difference in the way one of the following productions was received in its time and place.  (I suggest you skip this question unless you are knowledgeable about the historical background.)

A. Ira Aldridge, born in New York in 1807 and son of a minister, had small success as an actor in America, and so he left at the age of 17 (in 1824) to start a 40-year career first in England, and then in Europe and Russia, playing major Shakespearean roles--not only Othello, but also King Lear and other major roles.  The British Parliament had abolished the slave trade in 1807 and was moving towards the abolition of slavery in all parts of its Empire by the year 1833.

You are a drama critic for the London Times in 1830 reviewing Aldridge's performance.  Write the conclusion of your review stating how and why the production was significant and how it relates (or does not relate) to legislation being discussed about the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

B. Paul Robeson, the son of a runaway slave, graduated from Rutgers as a Phi Beta Kappa scholar and valedictorian of his class in 1919, gained renown as an athlete, earned a law degree at Columbia University, won fame as a concert singer and an actor (in Showboat and in Eugene O'Neill's play, The Emperor Jones). In 1930, he won great success as Othello on the London stage, but it was not until 1942 that he played the role in the United States, first near Harvard University and then on Broadway, with great success. Mel Ferrer played Iago.  One theater critic who had been in the audience opening night later recalled:

Only two American managers had had the courage in that year to put on this production with Robeson....

I remember when Paul Robeson bent down for the first time to kiss his Desdemona, there was a thrill of excitement in the theatre.  No black actor, believe it or not, had ever kissed a white actress on the American stage before that time.  

I remember when the innocent, vulnerable Desdemona prepared for bed, that magnificent scene, the tension was enormous, and when he strangled her, it was pretty close to unbearable.  At the end, there was a moment of absolute silence, unlike almost anything I've ever seen or heard in the theatre.  And then absolute pandemonium by that first audience in Cambridge, overwhelming acceptance, an historic occasion. (Elliot Norton, quoted in Hill, p. 124)

C.  In 1982, James Earl Jones combined his imposing voice and physique along with his power to show the vulnerable side of the characters he plays.  Theater critic Walter Kerr described how this worked in the scene (4.2) in which Othello calls Desdemona "a cunning whore":

And then--for a few mysterious seconds--the fever breaks.  Desdemona, body curled double in despair and retreat, is already in near-fetal position.  Looking down at her, and possibly seeing her for the bewildered, unformed creature she is, this Othello slowly and gently lowers himself, stretches out his massive military man's arms, and draws the folds of his voluminous cloak over both of them.  As his body shelters hers, conforms to hers, the two seem little more than children lost in a fairy-tale forest and falling asleep beneath a blanket of snow.  Their love for each other, so rapidly being destroyed, is in the silence. (Quoted in Hill, p. 176)

To respond to Question 5 on Staging, copy the question into a word processor, write your response and then submit it as indicated by your instructor.