Stratford’s Othello is not just jealousy
Production dives into exploration of racism, corrosive masculinity
“I absolutely believe a lot of our problems today are directly related to patriarchal colonialism.”
This from Nigel Shawn Williams, director of the Stratford Festival 2019 production of Othello.
For the first time at the Stratford Festival, Othello will be directed by a Black artist, and Williams is making the most of his Stratford tenure to speak truth to power.
For Williams, Othello is about much more than the revenge of one man against another; the dangers of racism, patriarchy and colonialism also lie at the play’s heart. It is these dangers that Williams seeks to explore by drawing connections between the racism endemic to
Othello’s Venetian society and that of today. “I’m not afraid to put my emotions and my social politics into the art that I make,” he says.
By way of a refresher: In Shakespeare’s tragedy, villainous Iago carries out a plot against Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. Enraged that Othello overlooked him for promotion, Iago seeks to turn Othello against his new bride, Desdemona, through a carefully spun web of lies, suspicion and jealousy.
Iago’s plot hinges on an ability to ruin his general by targeting Othello’s sense of manhood in a twisted puzzle of patriarchal supremacy. “That cuckold lives in bliss Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger.”
With these words, Iago drips doubt like a poison into Othello’s ear.
According to Williams, “the fear of being a cuckold is really about possession. It’s about embarrassment, about insecurity. It’s underneath what Iago is doing, because he’s aware of the power of it.”
Importantly, while Iago galvanizes this fear for his own ends, the racism that eats away at Othello’s psyche is systemic, woven into the fabric of society at large.
“Iago should be an Everyman, should be every person,” Williams says. “He should be someone that you could have seen in a crowd in Charlottesville.”
The dynamic of systemic racism in Othello necessarily reforms the titular hero’s tragic flaw. While traditional readings attribute Othello’s demise to his rageful jealousy, this Othello is far less green-eyed. The precariousness of his position in a racist Venetian society that “others” him even as it embraces him takes centre stage. Othello is whipped into a rage, not by jealousy, but by a deeply ingrained insecurity about his masculinity, his Blackness and his humanity.
“One of the things I talked to [Othello actor] Michael Blake about was Othello’s unconsciousness of the double consciousness,” Williams says, referencing the work of Black civil rights activist and historian W.E.B. Du Bois. Williams used Du Bois’ notion of double consciousness — when oppressed individuals regard themselves through the eyes of their oppressors — in rehearsals to unpack the character of Othello.
“I think the Black man who reaches a position of power and entitlement will always have doubt, he will always feel he is not worthy,” Williams says. “That is a known and unfortunately clear poison that has been passed down.”
These seeds of doubt work on Othello both psychically and physically. As he begins to succumb to Iago’s lies, Othello collapses to the ground in a fit. Iago looks on in disgust at the fractures in Othello’s masculine veneer. “It’s an armour of lies, possession and power,” Williams says. “Once there’s a crack in that armour, everything falls apart.”
Williams locates the greatest moment of tragedy in Othello’s final moments, when Iago’s plot is revealed and the veil of poison is lifted.
“The moment he kills himself is when he realizes where he stood in the world, he sees both sides of that double consciousness. He sees both sides of himself.” The Othello of Williams’s production is “just a man,” overburdened with generations of “what men have been made of.”
“(Iago) should be someone that you could have seen in a crowd in Charlottesville.” NIGEL SHAWN WILLIAMS DIRECTOR