Othello (character)
Encyclopedia
Othello is a character in Shakespeare's Othello
(c.1601-1604). The character's origin is traced to the tale, "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. There, he is simply referred to as the Moor.
Othello is a brave and competent soldier of advanced years and Moorish
background in the service of the Venetian Republic. He elopes with Desdemona
, the beautiful daughter of a respected Venetian senator. After being deployed to Cyprus, Othello is manipulated by his Ancient .gif", event)' onMouseout='HidePop("94097")' href="/topics/Ensign_(rank)">Ensign
) Iago
, into believing Desdemona is an adultress. Othello murders her before killing himself.
Othello was first mentioned in a Revels account of 1604 when the play was performed on 1 November at Whitehall Palace with Richard Burbage
almost certainly Othello's first interpreter. Modern notable performers of the role include Paul Robeson
, Orson Welles
, Richard Burton, James Earl Jones
, and Laurence Olivier
.
, an ambassador to the Moors. After time in Venice, Othello is appointed general in the Venetian Army
. His newly appointed Lieutenant Iago
tricks him into believing that his wife Desdemona
is having an affair with one of his soldiers, Michael Cassio
. Othello kills his wife out of jealousy, only to realize that his wife was faithful, at which point he commits suicide.
Othello has its source in the 1565 tale, "Un Capitano Moro" from Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. While no English translation of Cinthio was available in Shakespeare's lifetime, it is probable that Shakespeare knew both the Italian original and Gabriel Chappuy's 1584 French translation. Cinthio's tale may have been based on an actual incident occurring in Venice about 1508. It also resembles an incident described in the earlier tale of "The Three Apples", one of the stories narrated in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights). Desdemona is the only named character in Cinthio's tale, his other characters being identified as the Moor, the squadron leader, the ensign, and the ensign's wife.
While Shakespeare closely followed Cinthio's tale in composing Othello, he departed from it in some details, particularly in the tale's depiction of Desdemona's death. In Cinthio, the Moor commissions his ensign to bludgeon Desdemona to death with a sand-filled stocking. In gruesome detail, Cinthio follows each blow, and, when the lady is dead, the Moor and his ensign place her lifeless body upon her bed, smash her skull, and then cause the cracked ceiling above the bed to collapse upon her, giving the impression the falling rafters caused her death. The two murderers escape detection. The Moor then misses his wife greatly, and comes to loathe the sight of his ensign. He demotes him, and refuses to have him in his company. The ensign then seeks revenge by disclosing to "the squadron leader" (the tale's Cassio counterpart), the Moor's involvement in Desdemona's death. The two men denounce the Moor to the Venetian Seignory. The Moor is arrested, transported from Cyprus to Venice, and tortured, but refuses to admit his guilt. He is condemned to exile; Desdemona's relatives eventually put him to death. The ensign escapes any prosecution in Desdemona's death but engages in other crimes and dies after being tortured.
There is no consensus over Othello's race. E.A.J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare
edition, concluded that Othello's race is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with similarly ambiguous terms as 'African', "Ethiopian', 'Negro', and even 'Indian' to designate a figure from Africa (or beyond). Various uses of the word 'black' (for example, "Haply for I am black") are insufficient evidence for any accurate racial classification, Honigmann argues, since 'black' could simply mean 'swarthy' to Elizabethans. In 1911, James Welton argued more evidence points to him being Sub-Saharan, though Shakespeare's intention is unknown. He cites Brabantio
's description of Othello's "sooty bosom," a racial stereotype during this time, and Othello's comparison to Dian, a famous Ethiopian. He argues that interpretations attempting to change Othello from "black to brown" were due to racial prejudice during Reconstruction in America and notes that Othello is described using similar language in Titus Andronicus
. Virginia Mason Vaughan suggests that the racial identity of the character of Othello fit more clearly as a man from Sub-Saharan Africa
than from North Africa (Barbary) as north Africans were more easily accepted into society. She states that by 1604, accounts of Othello as deriving from further south were not uncommon. She notes Rodrigo's description of Othello having "thick lips" was a racial stereotype used by 16th century explorers for southern Africans. Modern-day readers and theatre directors lean away from a North African Moorish interpretation but Shakespeare's textual references are unclear. Iago twice uses the word 'Barbary' or 'Barbarian' to refer to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the "tawny" Moors. Roderigo calls Othello 'the thicklips', which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, as these comments are all intended as insults by the characters, they need not be taken literally.
Michael Neill, editor of the Oxford Shakespeare edition, notes that the earliest critical references to Othello's colour, (Thomas Rymer
's 1693 critique of the play, and the 1709 engraving in Nicholas Rowe
's edition of Shakespeare), assume him to be a black man, while the earliest known North African interpretation was not until Edmund Kean
's production of 1814. Honigmann questions the view that Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun
, Moorish ambassador of the Arab King of Barbary to Queen Elizabeth I
in 1600, was one inspiration for Othello. He stayed with his retinue in London for several months and occasioned much discussion, and thus might have inspired Shakespeare's play, written only a few years afterwards. The exact date that Othello was written is unknown, though sources indicate that it was written between 1601 and 1610, sometime after the Moorish delegation.
Othello is referred to as a “Barbary horse” (1.1.113), a “lascivious Moor” (1.1.127), and “the devil” (1.1.91). In in III.III he denounces Desdemona's supposed sin as being "black as mine own face." Desdemona's physical whiteness is otherwise presented in opposition to Othello's dark skin; V.II "that whiter skin of hers than snow." Iago tells Brabantio that "an old black ram / is tupping your white ewe" (1.1.88). In Elizabethan discourse, the word "black" could suggest various concepts that extended beyond the physical colour of skin, including a wide range of negative connotations.
Othello was frequently performed as an Arab Moor during the 19th century. In the past, Othello would often have been portrayed by a white actor in blackface
. Black American actor Paul Robeson
played the role from 1930-1959. Recent actors who chose to ‘blacken up’ include Lawrence Olivier (1965) and Orson Welles. Since the 1960s it has become commonplace to cast a black actor in the character of Othello, although the casting of the role now can come with a political subtext. Patrick Stewart
took the role in the Royal Shakespeare Company
's 1997 staging of the play "The Issue of Race and Othello". Curtain up, DC. 2 May 2010"Othello by William Shakespeare directed by Jude Kelly". The Shakespeare Theatre Company
. and Thomas Thieme, also white, played Othello in a 2007 Munich Kammerspiele
staging at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
, Stratford
. Michael Gambon
also took the role in 1980 and 1991; all three played without blackface, their performances critically acclaimed."Black or white? Casting can be a grey area" Guardian article. 5 April 2007"Othello (Theatre review) The Guardian Friday 28 April 2006
The most notable American production may be Margaret Webster
's 1943 staging starring Paul Robeson
as Othello and Jose Ferrer
as Iago. This production was the first ever in America to feature a black actor playing Othello with an otherwise all-white cast (there had been all-black productions of the play before). It ran for 296 performances, almost twice as long as any other Shakespearean play ever produced on Broadway
.Shakespeare in Sable: A History of Black Shakespearean Actors by Errol Hill
Shakespeare Quarterly
Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 276-278; Folger Shakespeare Library
and George Washington University
Although it was never filmed, it was the first nearly complete performance of a Shakespeare play released on records. Robeson played Othello from 1930–1959 and played the role in London in 1931 opposite a cast that included Peggy Ashcroft
as Desdemona and Ralph Richardson
as Roderigo, and would return to it in 1959 at Stratford on Avon.
The American actor William Marshall
performed the title role in at least six productions. His Othello was called by Harold Hobson
of the London Sunday Times "the best Othello of our time," continuing: "nobler than Tearle
, more martial than Gielgud
, more poetic than Valk
. From his first entry, slender and magnificently tall, framed in a high Byzantine arch, clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful, a figure of Arabian romance and grace, to his last plunging of the knife into his stomach, Mr Marshall rode without faltering the play's enormous rhetoric, and at the end the house rose to him." Marshall also played Othello in a jazz musical version, Catch My Soul, with Jerry Lee Lewis
as Iago, in Los Angeles in 1968. His Othello was captured on record in 1964 with Jay Robinson
as Iago and on video in 1981 with Ron Moody
as Iago. The 1982 Broadway
staging starred James Earl Jones
as Othello and Christopher Plummer
as Iago.
When Laurence Olivier
gave his acclaimed performance of Othello at the Royal National Theatre
(UK) in 1964, he had developed a case of stage fright that was so profound that when he was alone onstage, Frank Finlay
(who was playing Iago) would have to stand offstage where Olivier could see him to settle his nerves. This performance was recorded complete on LP, and filmed by popular demand in 1965 (according to a biography of Olivier, tickets for the stage production were notoriously hard to get). The film version
still holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for acting ever given to a Shakespeare film - Olivier, Finlay, Maggie Smith
(as Desdemona) and Joyce Redman
(as Emilia, Iago's wife) were all nominated for Academy Awards
.
Actors have alternated the roles of Iago and Othello in productions to stir audience interest since the nineteenth century. Two of the most notable examples of this role swap were William Charles Macready
and Samuel Phelps
at Drury Lane
(1837) and Richard Burton
and John Neville at the Old Vic Theatre (1955). When Edwin Booth
's tour of England in 1880 was not well attended, Henry Irving
invited Booth to alternate the roles of Othello and Iago with him in London. The stunt renewed interest in Booth's tour. James O'Neill
also alternated the roles of Othello and Iago with Booth.
White actors have continued to take the role. These include British performers Paul Scofield
at the Royal National Theatre
in 1980, Anthony Hopkins
in the BBC Shakespeare television production (1981), and Michael Gambon
in a stage production at Scarborough directed by Alan Ayckbourn
in 1990. In 1997, Patrick Stewart
took the role with the Shakespeare Theatre Company
(Washington, D.C.) in a race-bending performance, in a "photo negative" production of a white Othello with an otherwise all-black cast. Stewart had wanted to play the title role since the age of 14, so he and director Jude Kelly
inverted the play so Othello became a comment on a white man entering a black society. In 2006, Omkara
, the Bollywood version of Othello, Othello nee Omkara 'Omi' Shukla was played by Ajay Devgan
.
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
(c.1601-1604). The character's origin is traced to the tale, "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. There, he is simply referred to as the Moor.
Othello is a brave and competent soldier of advanced years and Moorish
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
background in the service of the Venetian Republic. He elopes with Desdemona
Desdemona (Othello)
Desdemona is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello . Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a man several years her senior. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the...
, the beautiful daughter of a respected Venetian senator. After being deployed to Cyprus, Othello is manipulated by his Ancient .gif", event)' onMouseout='HidePop("94097")' href="/topics/Ensign_(rank)">Ensign
Ensign (rank)
Ensign is a junior rank of a commissioned officer in the armed forces of some countries, normally in the infantry or navy. As the junior officer in an infantry regiment was traditionally the carrier of the ensign flag, the rank itself acquired the name....
) Iago
Iago
Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's source is traced to Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi . There, the character is simply "the ensign". Iago is a soldier and Othello's ancient . He is the husband of Emilia,...
, into believing Desdemona is an adultress. Othello murders her before killing himself.
Othello was first mentioned in a Revels account of 1604 when the play was performed on 1 November at Whitehall Palace with Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage was an English actor and theatre owner. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama....
almost certainly Othello's first interpreter. Modern notable performers of the role include Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, Richard Burton, James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
, and Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
.
Role
Othello is an African prince living in VeniceRepublic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
, an ambassador to the Moors. After time in Venice, Othello is appointed general in the Venetian Army
Military history of the Republic of Venice
The military history of the Republic of Venice covers a period from the 8th century to the 18th century and includes a variety of conflicts.Venice first rose as a major military power through her participation in the Fourth Crusade, where Venetian troops were among those effecting the conquest of...
. His newly appointed Lieutenant Iago
Iago
Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's source is traced to Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi . There, the character is simply "the ensign". Iago is a soldier and Othello's ancient . He is the husband of Emilia,...
tricks him into believing that his wife Desdemona
Desdemona (Othello)
Desdemona is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello . Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a man several years her senior. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the...
is having an affair with one of his soldiers, Michael Cassio
Michael Cassio
Michael Cassio, or simply Cassio, is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's Othello. The source of the character is the 1565 tale "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio; Cassio is unnamed in Cinthio but referred to as "the squadron leader." In the play, Cassio is a young and handsome lieutenant...
. Othello kills his wife out of jealousy, only to realize that his wife was faithful, at which point he commits suicide.
Source
While Shakespeare closely followed Cinthio's tale in composing Othello, he departed from it in some details, particularly in the tale's depiction of Desdemona's death. In Cinthio, the Moor commissions his ensign to bludgeon Desdemona to death with a sand-filled stocking. In gruesome detail, Cinthio follows each blow, and, when the lady is dead, the Moor and his ensign place her lifeless body upon her bed, smash her skull, and then cause the cracked ceiling above the bed to collapse upon her, giving the impression the falling rafters caused her death. The two murderers escape detection. The Moor then misses his wife greatly, and comes to loathe the sight of his ensign. He demotes him, and refuses to have him in his company. The ensign then seeks revenge by disclosing to "the squadron leader" (the tale's Cassio counterpart), the Moor's involvement in Desdemona's death. The two men denounce the Moor to the Venetian Seignory. The Moor is arrested, transported from Cyprus to Venice, and tortured, but refuses to admit his guilt. He is condemned to exile; Desdemona's relatives eventually put him to death. The ensign escapes any prosecution in Desdemona's death but engages in other crimes and dies after being tortured.
Race
Arden Shakespeare
The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries...
edition, concluded that Othello's race is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with similarly ambiguous terms as 'African', "Ethiopian', 'Negro', and even 'Indian' to designate a figure from Africa (or beyond). Various uses of the word 'black' (for example, "Haply for I am black") are insufficient evidence for any accurate racial classification, Honigmann argues, since 'black' could simply mean 'swarthy' to Elizabethans. In 1911, James Welton argued more evidence points to him being Sub-Saharan, though Shakespeare's intention is unknown. He cites Brabantio
Brabantio
Brabantio is a character in William Shakespeare's Othello . He is a Venetian senator and the father of Desdemona. He has entertained Othello is his home countless times before the play opens, thus giving Othello and Desdemona opportunity to fall in love...
's description of Othello's "sooty bosom," a racial stereotype during this time, and Othello's comparison to Dian, a famous Ethiopian. He argues that interpretations attempting to change Othello from "black to brown" were due to racial prejudice during Reconstruction in America and notes that Othello is described using similar language in Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, and possibly George Peele, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, and is often seen as his attempt to emulate the violent and bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were...
. Virginia Mason Vaughan suggests that the racial identity of the character of Othello fit more clearly as a man from Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
than from North Africa (Barbary) as north Africans were more easily accepted into society. She states that by 1604, accounts of Othello as deriving from further south were not uncommon. She notes Rodrigo's description of Othello having "thick lips" was a racial stereotype used by 16th century explorers for southern Africans. Modern-day readers and theatre directors lean away from a North African Moorish interpretation but Shakespeare's textual references are unclear. Iago twice uses the word 'Barbary' or 'Barbarian' to refer to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the "tawny" Moors. Roderigo calls Othello 'the thicklips', which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, as these comments are all intended as insults by the characters, they need not be taken literally.
Michael Neill, editor of the Oxford Shakespeare edition, notes that the earliest critical references to Othello's colour, (Thomas Rymer
Thomas Rymer
Thomas Rymer , English historiographer royal, was the younger son of Ralph Rymer, lord of the manor of Brafferton in Yorkshire, described by Clarendon as possessed of a good estate, who was executed for his share in the Presbyterian rising of 1663.-Early life and education:Thomas Rymer was born at...
's 1693 critique of the play, and the 1709 engraving in Nicholas Rowe
Nicholas Rowe (dramatist)
Nicholas Rowe , English dramatist, poet and miscellaneous writer, was appointed Poet Laureate in 1715.-Life:...
's edition of Shakespeare), assume him to be a black man, while the earliest known North African interpretation was not until Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever.-Early life:Kean was born in London. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk, and his mother was an actress, Anne Carey, daughter of the 18th century composer and playwright Henry Carey...
's production of 1814. Honigmann questions the view that Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun
Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud
Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun was principal secretary to the Moroccan ruler "Muly Hamet" , and ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1600, to promote the establishment of an Anglo-Moroccan alliance....
, Moorish ambassador of the Arab King of Barbary to Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
in 1600, was one inspiration for Othello. He stayed with his retinue in London for several months and occasioned much discussion, and thus might have inspired Shakespeare's play, written only a few years afterwards. The exact date that Othello was written is unknown, though sources indicate that it was written between 1601 and 1610, sometime after the Moorish delegation.
Othello was frequently performed as an Arab Moor during the 19th century. In the past, Othello would often have been portrayed by a white actor in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
. Black American actor Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
played the role from 1930-1959. Recent actors who chose to ‘blacken up’ include Lawrence Olivier (1965) and Orson Welles. Since the 1960s it has become commonplace to cast a black actor in the character of Othello, although the casting of the role now can come with a political subtext. Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
took the role in the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
's 1997 staging of the play "The Issue of Race and Othello". Curtain up, DC. 2 May 2010"Othello by William Shakespeare directed by Jude Kelly". The Shakespeare Theatre Company
Shakespeare Theatre Company
The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a regional theatre company located in Washington, D.C. Their self professed mission "is to present classic theatre of scope and size in an imaginative, skillful and accessible American style that honors the playwrights’ language and intentions while viewing their...
. and Thomas Thieme, also white, played Othello in a 2007 Munich Kammerspiele
Munich Kammerspiele
The Munich Kammerspiele is a successful German language theatre in Munich. The Schauspielhaus in the Maximilianstrasse is the major stage.-History:...
staging at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the British playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon - Shakespeare's birthplace - in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon...
, Stratford
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
. Michael Gambon
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...
also took the role in 1980 and 1991; all three played without blackface, their performances critically acclaimed."Black or white? Casting can be a grey area" Guardian article. 5 April 2007"Othello (Theatre review) The Guardian Friday 28 April 2006
20th century Othellos
Margaret Webster
Margaret Webster was an American-born theater actress, producer and director. Through her parents, she held dual US/UK citizenship.-Career:...
's 1943 staging starring Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
as Othello and Jose Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
as Iago. This production was the first ever in America to feature a black actor playing Othello with an otherwise all-white cast (there had been all-black productions of the play before). It ran for 296 performances, almost twice as long as any other Shakespearean play ever produced on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
.Shakespeare in Sable: A History of Black Shakespearean Actors by Errol Hill
Errol Hill
Errol Gaston Hill was a Trinidadian-born playwright and theater historian. He was the first tenured African American faculty member at Dartmouth College in the United States, joining their drama department in 1968....
Shakespeare Quarterly
Shakespeare Quarterly
Shakespeare Quarterly is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1950 by the . It is now under the auspices of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Along with book and performance criticism, Shakespeare Quarterly incorporates scholarly research and essays on Shakespeare and the age in which he...
Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 276-278; Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period...
and George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
Although it was never filmed, it was the first nearly complete performance of a Shakespeare play released on records. Robeson played Othello from 1930–1959 and played the role in London in 1931 opposite a cast that included Peggy Ashcroft
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
as Desdemona and Ralph Richardson
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films....
as Roderigo, and would return to it in 1959 at Stratford on Avon.
The American actor William Marshall
William Marshall (actor)
William Marshall was an American singer, bandleader and a motion picture actor, director and producer.Born in Chicago, Illinois, he became a vocalist for Fred Waring and his band, the "Pennsylvanians " before forming his own band in 1937...
performed the title role in at least six productions. His Othello was called by Harold Hobson
Harold Hobson
Sir Harold Hobson was an influential English drama critic and author.He was born in Thorpe Hesley near Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England and read History at Oxford University. He was an assistant literary editor for the Sunday Times from 1944 and later became its drama critic...
of the London Sunday Times "the best Othello of our time," continuing: "nobler than Tearle
Godfrey Tearle
Sir Godfrey Seymour Tearle was a British actor who portrayed the quintessential Englishman on stage and in both English and US films.-Biography:...
, more martial than Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
, more poetic than Valk
Frederick Valk
Frederick Valk was a German-born Jewish stage and screen actor of Czech descent who fled to the United Kingdom in the late 1930s to escape Nazi persecution, and subsequently became a naturalised British citizen...
. From his first entry, slender and magnificently tall, framed in a high Byzantine arch, clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful, a figure of Arabian romance and grace, to his last plunging of the knife into his stomach, Mr Marshall rode without faltering the play's enormous rhetoric, and at the end the house rose to him." Marshall also played Othello in a jazz musical version, Catch My Soul, with Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
as Iago, in Los Angeles in 1968. His Othello was captured on record in 1964 with Jay Robinson
Jay Robinson
Jay Robinson is an American actor specialising in character roles. He was born in New York City.-Career:Robinson began his acting career in summer stock theatre and repertory companies, and eventually made his way to the Broadway stage, where he appeared in Shakespeare's As You Like It and Much...
as Iago and on video in 1981 with Ron Moody
Ron Moody
Ron Moody is an English actor.- Personal life :Moody was born in Tottenham, North London, England, the son of Kate and Bernard Moodnick, a studio executive. His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother was a Lithuanian Jew. He is a cousin of director Laurence Moody and actress Clare...
as Iago. The 1982 Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
staging starred James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
as Othello and Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five...
as Iago.
When Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
gave his acclaimed performance of Othello at the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
(UK) in 1964, he had developed a case of stage fright that was so profound that when he was alone onstage, Frank Finlay
Frank Finlay
Francis Finlay, CBE is an English stage, film and television actor.-Personal life:Finlay was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, the son of Margaret and Josiah Finlay, a butcher. A devout Catholic, he belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild. He was educated at St...
(who was playing Iago) would have to stand offstage where Olivier could see him to settle his nerves. This performance was recorded complete on LP, and filmed by popular demand in 1965 (according to a biography of Olivier, tickets for the stage production were notoriously hard to get). The film version
Othello (1965 film)
Othello is a 1965 film based on the National Theatre's staging of Shakespeare's Othello staged by John Dexter. Directed by Stuart Burge, the film starred Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay, and Joyce Redman, providing film debuts for both Derek Jacobi and Michael...
still holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for acting ever given to a Shakespeare film - Olivier, Finlay, Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
(as Desdemona) and Joyce Redman
Joyce Redman
-Biography:She was born in County Mayo, Ireland, to an Anglo-Irish family. She was educated by a private governess in Ireland, along with her three sisters. She was trained in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art....
(as Emilia, Iago's wife) were all nominated for Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
.
Actors have alternated the roles of Iago and Othello in productions to stir audience interest since the nineteenth century. Two of the most notable examples of this role swap were William Charles Macready
William Charles Macready
-Life:He was born in London, and educated at Rugby.It was his intention to go up to Oxford, but in 1809 the embarrassed affairs of his father, the lessee of several provincial theatres, called him to share the responsibilities of theatrical management. On 7 June 1810 he made a successful first...
and Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps was an English actor and theatre manager...
at Drury Lane
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....
(1837) and Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
and John Neville at the Old Vic Theatre (1955). When Edwin Booth
Edwin Booth
Edwin Thomas Booth was a famous 19th century American actor who toured throughout America and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time...
's tour of England in 1880 was not well attended, Henry Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
invited Booth to alternate the roles of Othello and Iago with him in London. The stunt renewed interest in Booth's tour. James O'Neill
James O'Neill (actor)
James O'Neill was an actor and the father of the American playwright Eugene O'Neill....
also alternated the roles of Othello and Iago with Booth.
White actors have continued to take the role. These include British performers Paul Scofield
Paul Scofield
David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE , better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen...
at the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in 1980, Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
in the BBC Shakespeare television production (1981), and Michael Gambon
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...
in a stage production at Scarborough directed by Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
in 1990. In 1997, Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
took the role with the Shakespeare Theatre Company
Shakespeare Theatre Company
The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a regional theatre company located in Washington, D.C. Their self professed mission "is to present classic theatre of scope and size in an imaginative, skillful and accessible American style that honors the playwrights’ language and intentions while viewing their...
(Washington, D.C.) in a race-bending performance, in a "photo negative" production of a white Othello with an otherwise all-black cast. Stewart had wanted to play the title role since the age of 14, so he and director Jude Kelly
Jude Kelly
Judith Pamela Kelly OBE is a theatre director and producer from Liverpool, England.Kelly founded Solent People's Theatre, a touring company in 1976, and was artistic director of the Battersea Arts Centre from 1980 to 1985. In 1986, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company...
inverted the play so Othello became a comment on a white man entering a black society. In 2006, Omkara
Omkara (film)
Omkara is a 2006 Indian film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello, co-written and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj. It starred Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, and Kareena Kapoor in the lead roles, supported by Vivek Oberoi, Naseeruddin Shah, and Konkona Sen Sharma with a cameo role from Bipasha Basu...
, the Bollywood version of Othello, Othello nee Omkara 'Omi' Shukla was played by Ajay Devgan
Ajay Devgan
Ajay Devgan , born Vishal Veeru Devgan on 2 April 1969, is an Indian film actor, director, and producer.He made his film debut with Phool Aur Kaante in 1991 and received a Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut for his performance in the film and for which he won a Filmfare Best Debut Award...
.
Performance history
- Ira AldridgeIra AldridgeIra Frederick Aldridge , was an American stage actor who made his career largely on the London stage and in Europe, especially in Shakespearean roles...
- Edwin BoothEdwin BoothEdwin Thomas Booth was a famous 19th century American actor who toured throughout America and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time...
- Avery BrooksAvery BrooksAvery Franklin Brooks is an American actor, television director, jazz musician, opera singer and college professor. Brooks is perhaps best known for his television roles as Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and as Hawk on Spenser: For Hire and its spinoff A Man Called Hawk, and in the...
- Richard BurbageRichard BurbageRichard Burbage was an English actor and theatre owner. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama....
- Richard BurtonRichard BurtonRichard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
- Billy CrudupBilly CrudupWilliam Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...
(as Ned KynastonEdward KynastonEdward Kynaston was an English actor, one of the last Restoration "boy players," young male actors who played women's roles.-Career:...
playing Othello in Stage BeautyStage BeautyStage Beauty is a 2004 British-American-German romantic period drama directed by Richard Eyre. The screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher is based on his play Compleat Female Stage Beauty, which was inspired by references to 17th century actor Edward Kynaston made in the detailed private diary kept by...
) - Ajay DevganAjay DevganAjay Devgan , born Vishal Veeru Devgan on 2 April 1969, is an Indian film actor, director, and producer.He made his film debut with Phool Aur Kaante in 1991 and received a Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut for his performance in the film and for which he won a Filmfare Best Debut Award...
(as Omkara Shukla in OmkaraOmkara (film)Omkara is a 2006 Indian film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello, co-written and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj. It starred Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, and Kareena Kapoor in the lead roles, supported by Vivek Oberoi, Naseeruddin Shah, and Konkona Sen Sharma with a cameo role from Bipasha Basu...
) - Chiwetel EjioforChiwetel EjioforChiwetelu Umeadi "Chiwetel" Ejiofor, OBE is an English actor of stage and screen. He has received numerous acting awards and award nominations, including the 2006 BAFTA Awards Rising Star, three Golden Globe Awards' nominations, and the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his...
- Laurence FishburneLaurence FishburneLaurence John Fishburne III is an American film and stage actor, playwright, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, as Cowboy Curtis on the 1980's television show Pee-wee's Playhouse, and as singer-musician Ike Turner...
- Johnston Forbes-RobertsonJohnston Forbes-RobertsonSir Johnston Forbes-Robertson was an English actor and theatre manager. He was considered the finest Hamlet of the nineteenth century and one of the finest actors of his time, despite his dislike of the job and his lifelong belief that he was temperamentally unsuited to acting.-Early life:Born in...
- Moses Gunn
- John GielgudJohn GielgudSir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
- Anthony HopkinsAnthony HopkinsSir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
- Emil JanningsEmil JanningsEmil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar...
- Raul JuliaRaúl JuliáRaúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay was a Puerto Rican actor.Born in San Juan, he gained interest in acting while still in school. Upon completing his studies, Juliá decided to pursue a career in acting. After performing in the local scene for some time, he was convinced by entertainment personality Orson...
- James Earl JonesJames Earl JonesJames Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
- Art MalikArt MalikArt Malik is a Pakistani-born British actor who achieved international fame in the 1980s through his starring and subsidiary roles in assorted British and Merchant-Ivory television serials and films...
- William MarshallWilliam Marshall (actor)William Marshall was an American singer, bandleader and a motion picture actor, director and producer.Born in Chicago, Illinois, he became a vocalist for Fred Waring and his band, the "Pennsylvanians " before forming his own band in 1937...
- John Neville
- James O'NeillJames O'Neill (actor)James O'Neill was an actor and the father of the American playwright Eugene O'Neill....
- Laurence OlivierLaurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
- Mekhi PhiferMekhi PhiferMekhi Thira Phifer is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his multi-year role as Dr. Greg Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER and his co-starring role opposite Eminem in the feature film 8 Mile...
(as Odin in OO (film)O is a 2001 American drama film, and a loose modern adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello.The film's intended release date was April 1999, but due to the Columbine High School massacre, the film was shelved for two years by its original distributor, Miramax Films. Ultimately, it was sold...
) - Paul RobesonPaul RobesonPaul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
- Tommaso SalviniTommaso SalviniTommaso Salvini was an Italian actor. His father and mother were both actors, and Tommaso first appeared when he was barely fourteen as Pasquino in Goldoni's Donne curiose. In 1847 he joined the company of Adelaide Ristori, who was then at the beginning of her brilliant career...
- Paul ScofieldPaul ScofieldDavid Paul Scofield, CH, CBE , better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen...
- Patrick StewartPatrick StewartSir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
- Eamonn WalkerEamonn WalkerEamonn Walker is an English film, television and theatre actor. In the United States, he is known for playing Kareem Said in the HBO television series Oz, for which he won a CableACE Award, and elsewere as Winston, the gay, black thorn in Alf Garnett's side in In Sickness and in Health and John...
- Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
- Cyril NriCyril NriCyril Nri is a British actor, writer and director. He attended the Young Vic Youth Theatre in Waterloo, London. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and is probably best known for playing the role of Superintendent Adam Okaro, now Chief Superintendent, in the long-running ITV police...
- Lenny HenryLenny HenryLenworth George "Lenny" Henry, is a British actor, writer, comedian and occasional television presenter.- Early life :...
- Ajay DevganAjay DevganAjay Devgan , born Vishal Veeru Devgan on 2 April 1969, is an Indian film actor, director, and producer.He made his film debut with Phool Aur Kaante in 1991 and received a Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut for his performance in the film and for which he won a Filmfare Best Debut Award...