Othello
March 14-17 2001 Sandfield Theatre
part of the Nottingham Youth Theatre Month of Drama.
Production Notes
Alongside Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, this play rates as one of Shakespeare's finest tragedies. Othello's fall from greatness is prompted by his fatal flaw of jealousy. A brilliant military strategist and highly-valued yet humble servant of the state of Venice, he allows himself to be fooled into thinking his new young wife is unfaithful.
Once caught in the net of suspicion, he is preyed upon "even to madness". In this play "the tragic fall" is physicalised when Othello falls to the floor in a convulsion. The rational renaissance man turns into an irrational animal, blind to the obvious and in the midst of chaos. In true classical style we have mixed feelings towards him. We pity him for what he suffers, the loss of his proper faculties, his status, his self- respect, his wife and his own life. We also fear that we too can so easily be swayed by suggestion which is allowed to fester in thought.
As in Macbeth, it is tempting to excuse Othello's faults because he is manipulated by such a force of evil. "The supernatural Witches made him do it" could easily explain away Macbeth's actions in killing the king and others. In this play, Iago, the malcontent passed over for promotion in Othello's service by Cassio, is so evil in his revenge, so lacking in obvious motive that he is often seen as the devil incarnate. But this would be too easy an excuse for Othello in this day and age of accountability, and too simplistic an explanataion of Iago. In this production he has a black wife, as well as serving a black general. He manipulates them both and treats them with disgust. His racist contempt in the play is easy to overlook, but it is always there and like jealousy, something of which we must all be ware.
Whilst this is essentially a domestic tragedy, it
has a number of interesting thematic and dramatic elements. The animal
references and metaphors are more prevalent in this play than others.
The message being that man is never far from the beast and it is the retention
of his self-control and his ability to reason that separates him from
the bestial. Cassio's rapid descent into drunkenness and irrational anger
illustrates this well and as far as Othello is concerned, the horns of
the cuckold are also the horns of the beast.
Money and the economics of the time are never far away from this tale.
This play was written at the turn of the C17th in the midst of a major
economic shift in Europe. The rise of the mercantile class, had given
rise to and funded the Renaissance and was centred on the City states
of Italy and the lucrative trade with the East. Othello, a successful
mercenary soldier from North Africa in the pay of Venice, is sent to Cyprus
not just to protect the island, but also to protect the Venetian investment
in the trade route. Iago extorts money and jewels from Roderigo and Othello
constructs his confrontation with the supposed guilty Desdemona as if
in a brothel, with Emilia treated as the paid door-keeper. It is a transaction.
That increase in wealth and the concomitant extension of education also gave rise to a situation the critic L.C.Knights called "C17th Melancholy". There were not enough jobs in influential circles for all those who felt they had been educated for, and thus deserved, rank and position. Iago is a classic example and many of the plays of this time involve a malcontent railing on the injustice of the world and seeking revenge for his lack of advancement. In the scheming politic villain we find the dead hand of Machiavelli as well as the popular theatrical man-we-love-to-hate. In this latter, Iago is a descendent of the ranting Herod in the medieval cycle plays and the antecedent of J.R.Ewing and "Nasty Nick" from Big Brother.
Dramatically, we see the fingerprints of Aristotle throughout the play, but there are some interesting twists. For example, hubris or pride is the human failing that most often afflicts the tragic hero. Here it is another of the deadly sins, jealousy, but treated almost like a modern psychological case-study. Similarly, the anagnorisis, the sudden awakening or the moment of dreadful realisation, is actually not given to the tragic hero of the piece, but to Emilia, when she realises that she has been instrumental in the eventual catastrophe through stealing her mistress' handkerchief to keep her husband happy.