Othello and Desdemona in Venice by Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856)
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, often shortened to Othello,[a] is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus, the play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulated by his ensign, Iago, into suspecting his wife Desdemona of infidelity. Othello is widely considered one of Shakespeare’s greatest works and is usually classified among his major tragedies alongside Macbeth, King Lear, and Hamlet. Unpublished in the author’s life, the play survives in one quarto edition from 1622 and in the First Folio.
Othello has been one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, both among playgoers and literary critics, since its first performance, spawning numerous stage, screen, and operatic adaptations. Among actors, the roles of Othello, Iago, Desdemona, and Emilia (Iago’s wife) are regarded as highly demanding and desirable. Critical attention has focused on the nature of the play’s tragedy, its unusual mechanics, its treatment of race, and on the motivations of Iago and his relationship to Othello. Originally performed by white actors in dark makeup, the role of Othello began to be played by black actors in the 19th century.
Shakespeare’s major source for the play was a novella by Cinthio, the plot of which Shakespeare borrowed and reworked substantially. Though not among Shakespeare’s longest plays, it contains two of his four longest roles in Othello and Iago.
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So I prefer plays to be casted as race blind (which has been a thing long before Hollywood kinda started doing it), however in Othello race is a major theme.
Chat, as a white man, if I were to put on a production of Othello would it be wrong to seek to cast a white (or white passing) woman as Desdemona?
This is purely hypothetical but something I’ve wondered about before. Would especially appreciate if any theater nerds had insight into this.
Oh my god, I thought you wanted to cast a white woman as Othello
No Desdemona is often played by a white woman, I think in the text shes Venetian and fair skinned but shes not marked as Other like Othello is. You could very easily do a version where Desdemona is white, thats the usual way of playing her anyway lmao
They wanted to do this in my city and then the BLM uprisings happened and everyone got very mad so they cancelled the whole production 😬
I like race blind and gender blind casting too, if it doesnt impact the role. Besides all the women used to be played by men, why not let the girls play a “mans” role. Ive see a woman play King Henry V and she rocked it. Why not let someone who is asian, black, whatever play Ferdinand or Rosalind
Othello’s race comes up, and perhaps some other view of bigotry is why Iago does what he does but if youre doing this in America - the race of the guy is going to matter in the social milieu. I think Shakespeare picked the Moor to have him be a big O Outsider and thats his tension and struggle. The reason we still do these 400 year old plays is because the social context changes and we have more to learn about it with Shakespeares beautiful prose - for now in America, being black is still part of the big O Other, the hegellian concrete universal who because of the Otherness can stand in for all humanity. Besides, how many other Shakespeare roles were made specifically for a black actor?? (irl Richard Burbage played him in Shakespeare’s time lol, probably in some form of black face but I guess it was the 1600s in England… ah).
Why do you want to do Othello specifically? Theres other tragedies that are great. Antony and Cleopatra would be dope too.
It’s just a hypothetical and I only bring it up because of the topic in the main post. It’s the only big name play (to me) where race blind casting could diminish the impact since race is a core theme.