Review (or at least notes) on Shakespeare’s Othello

I just watched a performance of Shakespeare’s Othello by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company.  James Waterston was brilliant as Iago, and Grayson Powell and Fred Sullivan were competent as Roderigo and Brabantio, respectively.  At first, I was put off by Marianna Bassham‘s portrayal of Desdemona, but as I reflected on it, the interpretation of the role carries considerable challenges, which may be exacerbated by directorial choices.  Before we can fairly evaluate Ms. Bassham’s performance, we must think a bit about the strange Desdemona.

Consider: Iago is fascinating, but he is as one-dimensional as they come.  His sole desire is revenge.  All of his reflections, all his dialogue, all his actions, are directed toward this single objective.  Othello, Roderigo, Cassio are not even one-dimensional like Iago.  They are mere dupes, puppets in Iago’s schemes.

But Desdemona is an enigma.  Othello and Brabantio agree in describing both her beauty and her virginal modesty, leaving the impression that she is empty-headed and unassertive.  But she clearly has some boldness in her.  She ran away from her father to marry Othello, and had the wit to signal her love to him by wishing that there was “some friend of Othello’s that loved her, that could tell his stories to her.”  Ah, feminine charm!  Furthermore, she is assertive in her defense of her conduct to her father, and bold in her proclamations of love to Othello.  She presses Cassio’s case most strongly, and so has a clear sense of justice.

Desdemona is still “good”, unless tempting a man to marriage with coquetry is a crime.  She is not the virgin too innocent to do anything but good; rather, she is practical good, knowing what is right and standing up for it.  She gets what she wants.

The final acts of the play, seen in this context, are a puzzler.  Why does Desdemona obey Othello, and report to their marriage bed to be slaughtered?  As she waits for him, knowing that he is in a rage, she expresses a clear premonition that she is going to die.  She waits, worries, and does nothing.  At last, after a few feeble protestations of love, she dies.  Did she obey Othello because it was her wifely duty?  This is implausible; Shakespeare offers no speech supporting such an interpretation, and a girl practical enough to win a man by coquetry should have few qualms about fleeing to the protection of her father or her state to avoid a brutality that would be contemned by her people.

Desdemona Waiting to Die

The answer awaits a rereading of the play.  Ms. Bassham portrayed Desdemona as a strong woman.  She is fully aware of all that is going on around her; when the city councilors suggest that she stay at her father’s house while Othello defends Cyprus, her “No!” is resounding and resolute.  She fearlessly kisses and plays with Othello in front of underlings.  Then, as Othello slips into jealousy, Ms. Bassham allows a little bit of Desdemona’s sanity to slip away.  The death song she sings recalls Hamlet‘s Ophelia.

These decisions do a good job of reconciling the strength in Desdemona’s character with the strange decision to lay in supine waiting for Othello’s revenge.  But they leave a stranger question: if Desdemona is strong and good, how to reconcile this with the coquetry she displayed in seducing Othello?  Her blushing wishes and downward glances and fluttering eyelashes smack, if not of the deceitfulness of Iago, at least of a bit more canniness than a noble soul should hold.

This question caused me to view Othello in a new light: if Desdemona is canny, or even capable of lies, like Iago, could she be Iago’s equal, or opposite?  As the play progressed to the final acts, I imagined altering the intonation and blocking of every line to make Iago the hero defending his master’s honor, and Desdemona the treacherous seductress.  I do not think such an interpretation is fully supported by the text of the play, but in any event, Ms. Bassham gave a thought-provoking performance.  My Iago-hero fantasy was eased also by Mr. Waterston’s charisma.

We cannot pass without also mentioning Emilia.  She is clever enough to see, in Othello’s jealousy, the influence of an outside agent, but too loyal to Iago to entertain the notion that it might be him.  She passes up an opportunity or two of revealing his handkerchief treachery until she places it within the larger plot; at this point, murder most foul having been done, she forgoes her wifely loyalty and proclaims Iago’s guilt, in service of the right.  Of course, the scene in which she comprehends Iago’s plot, but not his agency, may not be meant to reflect cleverness, but only a ham-fisted ironic or dramatic gesture by the Bard.  Nonetheless, who said Shakespeare wasn’t a feminist?  Desdemona and Emilia are by far the most interesting characters here.

Edit: Upon reflection, I’ve decided to include some further comments on Ms. Bassham’s choices in her portrayal of Desdemona.

Shakespeare – Story of Civilization VII.iii.i-VII.iv.vii

Durant sums up the case for Shakespeare as follows: “These are the three epochal gifts of the world’s drama, and we must, despite our limitations, welcome them all to our deepening, thanking our heritage for Greek wisdom, French beauty, and Elizabethan life.  (But, of course, Shakespeare is supreme.)”

What confluence of forces produced Shakespeare?  We must first acknowledge that, like Michelangelo, Shakespeare was not produced by his environment, but only made possible by it.  The wealth and prosperity of England, the religious ebb that gave free rein to dramatic performances, and the scholarly tide that introduced nearly all of the classics into England in just a few decades, made Shakespeare possible.  But Shakespeare was unique.

But perhaps to understand Shakespeare fully, we must understand his background.  In reading about Elizabethan literature, I found a quite striking thesis in the figure of Sir Philip Sidney.  He argued, in brief, that the purpose of literature was to elucidate morality.  Philosophy, he acknowledged, could do this, but it tended to get lost in the general precept.  History also could touch on morality, but was relentlessly confined to the inane details of what actually happened (or worse, an ignorance thereof).  Literature, Sidney argued, provided the happy medium; in accessible examples, it could speak to men of concrete, specific things – thereby escaping philosophy’s shortcomings – while avoiding the problem of relying on the limited storehouse of examples that history provides.  Perhaps, in literature, there could even be a beauty that even the best philosophy struggles to attain.

Sidney’s argument was, in a way, an apology for the prevalence of extremely moralistic allegories as one of the chief literary forms of his time.  Shakespeare’s early drama, like other drama of the time, was to some degree an outgrowth of allegorical fiction.  In the early tragedies, like Richard II and Richard III, the principle characters are personifications of qualities, about which the story turns, and a moral is pointed.

Shakespeare’s genius lay (among many, many other qualities) in his eventual ability to overcome this overly symbolical way of writing and achieve complex characters; modern taste cites Hamlet as the best example of this achievement.  Without Shakespeare to lead the way, would the subtleties of Thackeray, or the moralistic novellas (Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, It’s a Wonderful Life, Casablanca) of our own era ever have come into existence?  Probably, but perhaps after much lost time.

For the time being, we will follow Durant in thinking Shakespeare the greatest of the great.  Many of his works have been added to the Recommended Reading.