Williams, 35, has never felt this way in a role. But playing Othello as a Black woman amid nationwide protests against systemic racism, she sees parallels between racism in the play and in real life.
Monday, October 05, 2020
Playing Othello as a Black woman in today's America
Williams, 35, has never felt this way in a role. But playing Othello as a Black woman amid nationwide protests against systemic racism, she sees parallels between racism in the play and in real life.
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First of all it was really interesting to read that Williams gave up her Equity membership in order to play this role. It’s clear that some companies have opened up to some extent - and while it makes me nervous, I heard her point of “I need that money.” Aside from that, it’s really interesting to hear that they hired a Black woman to play Othello. Was this a specific decision made by the Production team, or did Williams just give such a knock-it-out-of-the-park audition that they gave it to her? When I read this headline, I was a little shocked to see that a woman was playing the role of Othello. In recent years there have been actually quite a bit of gender-bent Shakespeare shows - with women taking on key roles. However, Othello has always had some tricky nuances - the main character has always been interpreted as Black, and with that identifier comes a lot of other nuances about the show. I really want to see this streamed, because Williams talked so much about what the audience needed to take away, and I want to see if these themes that she felt so strongly about are present in this adaptation.
Othello was the one of the first plays I ever read and performed a scene from in my high school drama class, and every time I have read it since then, I am always getting new things from it. I think it would be naïve to think that a production of Othello happening now isn’t shaped in some way by the Black Lives Matter movement. I think part of what we as theatre artists must think about every time we do a production, is why this play and why this play now- and I can see that question coming clear through the American Shakespeare Center’s production of Othello. It is interesting for me to think about this play being gender bent because I think of the hyper masculinity in the entire play, but I think that is partially rooted in my initial reading of Othello, where my mindset about gender and the gender binary was less fluid that it is today. I will most definitely be trying to find a streamed version of this production, because I think there is a lot of power behind a production that transcends some usual boundaries- and because the conversation that Jessika Williams’ had in this article makes me think this will be another eye opening experience of the play.
I really like the quote at the end – “I’m not wearing masculinity. I’m playing masculinity.” That’s such an interesting point of how we separate the constructs of gender. Anyway, I’ve worked on Othello before; I played Emilia in a summer outdoor production of it during the pandemic. It’s definitely a very complicated play and one where it’s hard to find the real villain. In my opinion, Othello is ultimately a victim of Iago which leads to him killing Desdemona, but does that excuse murder? It’s a tough question to grapple with. The history of the play is obviously and undoubtedly racist. The role has been performed – and was intended to be performed – by white men in blackface, and there have been warring interpretations: it’s very easy to present Othello as a villain because of his Blackness. I’m glad to see this production and other productions being able to really unpack it, and for the play to have the opportunity to break from its past and become something more complicated and meta that shows the ways in which Othello is a broken man driven by society.
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