h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Othello. 2007 Filmed theatre performance at the Globe Theatre

I enjoyed watching this performance, for the first time, as I had specially saved it for NaJoPoMo. The first Othello that has really involved me. I have watched a lot of other versions and have never felt drawn in. I must try and work out why some time. I have Macbeth down for a watch near the end of the month and that is another play that doesn’t engage me emotionally.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy them, just that the enjoyment is more to do with the action rather than the emotion. In this production, Tim McInnerny is an Iago that is worryingly normal, yet very evil. He doesn’t do too much sneering and no demonical giggling at all. Zoe Tapper is a very sweet and sympathetic (and young for a change) Desdemona, and Lorraine Burroughs grows into Aemilia such that in the final scene she drew tears from me.

Eamonn Walker, who I had never seen before, is superb. He has the physicality to make Othello believable as a warrior and yet the control to speak the verse coherently and clearly even when in his most impassioned moods. Unsurprisingly he is a black actor, although the blurb did point out that he is the first black actor to play Othello at any of the Bankside Globes since they opened in 1599.

We are used to black actors taking the role nowadays, but it wasn’t always so. The great Paul Robeson played Othello in the 1930’s in the USA, not the first black Othello, but possibly the first to play in an otherwise all white cast. The production was recorded on discs and it is said that Laurence Olivier based his vocal performance on Robeson’s for his 1964 National Theatre production.

Olivier had to black up for the role, and it may be that the version I have seen, on an old VHS tape, may have been unable to cope with both black face and the shadows created by the theatre lighting, but for most of the play Olivier looked more Venusian than Moorish. I always had in the back of my mind the fear that at any moment he was going to put on white gloves, walk to the front of the stage, cry ‘You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet’ and launch into ‘Swanee River’.

Despite Robeson’s performance, Othello continued to be played by white actors, in the BBC complete series, Anthony Hopkins played him with less of the sub Saharan and more of the Arab, that is a lighter shade of Max Factor foundation. There have been many acres of print dedicated by academics to the argument of whether Othello is Black or Arab. One production I would have liked to have seen was in Washington DC some years ago when Patrick Stewart played Othello as a white man, in a cast that was otherwise completely black.

I actually don’t think it matters. What matters is that Othello is an outsider, an alien. (Perhaps that subconscious thought inspired Olivier?) As a great general his military talents are useful to the State and he is accorded their respect, but just beneath the surface is the continued suspicion that he will react differently to events than a European would.

I think I am right in saying that Shakespeare didn’t have many outsiders in his plays. One other black/moor, Aaron in ‘Titus Andronicus’, who is probably written as black to highlight his evil nature, that being a natural thought process in early modern times (i.e. pre 1970’s). And Shylock, in ‘The Merchant of Venice’.

Shylock is most definitely an outsider, a Jew living in a Christian city. ‘The Merchant’ became a problem play after the Second World War. Post Holocaust the anti semitism in the play led to many people to become uncomfortable with it. In the series ‘Playing Shakespeare’ there is a discussion about the playing of Shylock between Patrick Stewart and David Suchet, who had both recently played the part, both directed by the presenter of the series, John Barton.

Suchet is Jewish, and he said that when he took on the role he received a small number of letters from people who were outraged that he would agree to take part. His response was that although there is anti semitism in the play, the play is not itself anti semitic. He felt there was a great deal of motivation for Shylock to wish to be revenged on Antonio, but that in the end Shylock goes too far in actively wishing to kill him. But as Suchet says, that’s a character fault not a racial one. In Israel, the play is very popular and they have no problems with engaging with it in a non religious way.

Stewart is not Jewish and decided not to play the traditional ringlets, false nose, oriental gown, and accent that are often employed. He saw Shylock as a man in an alien environment desperately trying to ‘fit’ in. Therefore his accent was more refined and his words more ordered than the Venetians (Aristocratic English). I believe that Shakespeare wrote Shylock as a Jew just because he needed someone who had an ‘otherness’ to set up the conflicts, in just the same way as Othello is needed as an exotic difference.

Shylock lends money at interest, this is his business, Antonio lends money without interest, and this is a cause of conflict. It is stated very often as a truism that Christians were forbidden to lend money at interest by the scriptures. If that is the case a lot of them obviously ignored the rule as even Will and his father John were recorded as lending money, and definitely not gratis.

Is it possible to play Shylock sympathetically? Post Holocaust it is what every production seems to be attempting. And there is much to be sympathetic about. He is spurned and insulted in the street by the Christians. A group of them help in the elopement of his daughter who takes with her much of his capital. Would they have bothered if it wasn’t for the money?

Bassanio goes to Belmont, bankrolled by Antonio, to woo Portia, mainly to mend his fortune. At the end of the trial scene the behaviour of most of the Christian ‘Hooray Henrys’ is frankly shameful. I confess I almost wish he would cut Antonio’s heart out.

Ultimately Shylock just goes too far. Nothing that he suffers justifies a death. But that was Shakespeare’s talent, creating flawed characters. We can relate to Shylock’s hatred of this group of people whilst still being opposed to his attempted revenge.

In the tangled web of surmise and romantic guess work that is ‘The Life and Times of Will S’ there are tantalising glimpses. Many people believe that the inspiration for the ‘Dark Lady’ of the sonnets was Aemilia Lanier (nee Bassano) daughter of a Venetian musician in Elizabeth’s court. There is no hard evidence that she was Jewish or the 'Dark Lady' but enough circumstantial evidence to satisfy most fiction writers.

Deb

[Amy P]

Another thought-provoking journal.

Armin Shimerman played the first Ferengi on Star Trek and continued the role on Deep Space Nine. He likened Quark to a Shakespearean "vice character" (and adored the role), the repository of bad otherness. Just think how much the Ferengi resemble the Elizabethan caricature of jewishness! Acquisitive, amoral, sexually overactive, misshapen, but possessed of strong traditions... The vice character transcends Shakespeare and very likely predated him.

When I read the journal title I thought for a moment you were going to write about the Blue Man Group...

The title of the journal is from 'Ther Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band' from the sixties. It may be reasonably suggested that white middle class English boys 'rescued' American Blues music, certainly they provided a stage for some of the surviving Country Blues singers to top up their pension pots.

The question was asked 'Can white men sing the blues?'