Othello

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Summary: The Arden Shakespeare is excellent!
Review: The play "Othello" is magnificant, and there are plenty of reviews to attest to that. This reviewer wants to point out greatness of the publisher and editor in this case (referring to the Arden Shakespeare). After buying Arden's "Henry V" publication a year ago, I have become a devout fan.

I will never buy Shakespeare from another publisher. While these books may be slightly more expensive than a "mass market" edition, I believe that if you are going to take the time to read and understand Shakespeare, it is well worth the extra dollar or two. The Introduction, the images, and plethora of footnotes are irreplaceable and nearly neccessary for a full understanding of the play (for those of us who are not scholars already). I recommend that you buy ALL of Shakespeare's work from Arden's critical editions.

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Summary: Art to us
Review: What to say is that I love it and it makes me greater in thoubght. Shakespeare was a beautiful and wonderful soul of one thousand different faces.

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Summary: AN ASS THAT WILL NOT MEND HIS PACE WITH BEATING
Review: My one star is not directed toward OTHELLO, which is one of Shakespeare's greatest dramatic achievements, but is directed toward Ms. Sean Ares Hirsch, who is either one of the dumbest readers I know of or one of the most facetious (I pray the latter). She refers to this minor piece as "Shakespeare's slump" and elaborates by saying that the play's characters, minus Iago, are flat. Looking at the fairly impressive amount that Ms. Hirsch has read (possibly in the WORLD CLASSICS FOR CHILDREN series), it is unthinkable to conclude that she is actually as mentally challenged as she appears. She contradicts nearly 400 years of criticism in slighting OTHELLO, something that I recall a couple of well-known drug users in one of my high school English classes doing 25 years go. I must admit that I occasionally become concerned that Ms. Hirsch is actually being candid when reading her reviews, which are rather unimaginative and when grouped into three categories (works she doesn't like, works she likes fairly well, and works she loves) and then read, all begin to repeat themselves in trite groups of three. Yet, considering the fact that if Ms. Hirsch were to turn in one of her reviews (especially the ones on OTHELLO and TWELFTH NIGHT, which is, though AS YOU LIKE IT is a close second, probably Shakespeare's greatest comedy) to even a kindergarten teacher, she (Ms. Hirsch) would be thoroughly laughed at, I must conclude that these reviews are largely sarcastic-possibly clever parodies of those of the average construction-worker critic. OTHELLO is, as I am sure Ms. Hirsch actually believes, one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, though not, of course, quite matching LEAR or HAMLET. I would like to try my hand at one of Ms. Hirsch clever parodies. Don't judge me too harshly. Be kind. I am not as skilled as she is. Here we go: ............. Review of AS YOU LIKE IT: "My only complaint about this play is that Shakespeare overtly forced himself to include Rosalind, Jacques, Touchstone, Orlando, Duke Senior, and above all Phebe. Had he excluded the aforementioned figures from the action, he could have indeed much improved this so-called "problem play". Although this play lacks the hilarious tone of Webster's WHITE DEVIL or the superb construction of Carlos Williams's RED WHEELBARROW, it is a fine play. Duke Senior's defiant usurpation of the woodlands and Rosalind's atavistic reversion to conspicuous, though hardly narcissistically cogent, transvestitism do not effect the play's nefarious, wholly phallic destruction. The play's conclusion at the joyous feast of Hemline rectifies all wrongs and negates our suspicions concerning Shakespeare's sexual unrest or "rough and all-unable pen" (certainly a Freudian reference). If you read this, knowing not to expect a virile Bard, you may find it a very pleasant play."

David Lawrence, D.D.T. ([e-mail])

Rating:
Summary: Naxos complete recording one of their series' best
Review: The recent Naxos AudioBook entry in their Classic Drama Series, <Othello> NA 320612), is so well directed by David Timson that it fairly boils along. Granted that some passages are read a bit too swiftly to be followed by those without texts open before them, but one gets the feeling that this is a play and not a 400 year old monument. There are moments, however, when one could use some extra noises-on, so to speak. When Iago gets Cassio drunk, a little more rowdiness from extras would be appropriate--but perhaps I am spoiled by too many film versions and certainly by the full chorus in Verdi's opera.

Hugh Quarshie makes a more interesting Othello than a great one. He does not have that Paul Robeson voice that one tends to associate with the role, and he understands the part light years better than the Othello of that unfortunate film version a few years back. But his lightweight approach does not work when the mouth-filling flights of poetry make their demands after he is convinced of Desdamona's infidelity.

Anton Lesser also makes a fine but not great impression as Iago. Perhaps he needs to use more variety of delivery when he is being "honest" with the other characters. After all, his approach to Othello should not be in the same key as that to Roderigo or even to Cassio. Iago is a supreme actor, so it takes an equally supreme one to play him.

For once, we can hear Emilia (Patience Tomlinson) hesitate when she speaks of the "lost" handkerchief; although on a sound recording she cannot give us the body-language to explain why she betrays her lady for the sake of her husband. The Cassio (Roger May) is very good in the handkerchief scene with Iago and the hidden, miscomprehending Othello.

The running time is just over 3 hours, 11 minutes longer than the venerable Shakespeare Recording Society with Frank Silvera as Othello and Cyril Cusack as Iago, now available on Harper Audio. There still might be available a very dull version with Richard Johnson and Ian Holm, but avoid it.

Rating:
Summary: Easy way to understand what shakespeare meant
Review: I think that as the author explained in the intro the original is hard to understand due to the venacular at use. The author took the story and munipulated it to fit the style of our times. He did this well and kept the story captivating and uses actual words for the story. He also eases the reader by making it a novel with inside feelings and thoughts which are harder to comprehend in play form. Its a great book to read. I recommend it for anyone that has ever had to read shakespeare and not completly understood what they were reading.

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Summary: The Ocular Proof
Review: As a play, "Othello" encompasses many things but more than anything else it is a study of pure evil. Although Othello is an accomplished professional soldier and a hero of sorts, he is also a minority and an outcast in many ways. As a Black man and a Moor (which means he's a Moslem), Othello has at least two qualities, which make him stand out in the Elizabethan world. He is also married to a Caucasian woman named Desdemona, which creates an undercurrent of hostility as evidenced by the derogatory remark "the ram hath topped the ewe".

Othello's problems begin when he promotes one of his soldiers, Michael Cassio as his lieutenant. This arouses the jealousy and hatred of one of his other soldiers, Iago who hatches a plot to destroy Othello and Michael Cassio. When Cassio injures an opponent in a fight he is rebuked, punished, and subsequently ignored by Othello who must discipline him and teach him a lesson. Iago convinces Desdemona to intervene on Cassio's behalf and then begins to convince Othello that Desdemona is in love with Cassio.

This is actually one of the most difficult Shakespeare plays to watch because the audience sees the plot begin to unfold and is tormented by Othello's gradual decent into Iago's trap. As with other Shakespeare plays, the critical components of this one are revealed by language. When Othello is eventually convinced of Cassio's treachery, he condemns him and promotes Iago in his place. When Othello tells Iago that he has made him his lieutenant, Iago responds with the chilling line, "I am thine forever". To Othello this is a simple affirmation of loyalty, but to the audience, this phrase contains a double meaning. With these words, Iago indicates that the promotion does not provide him with sufficient satisfaction and that he will continue to torment and destroy Othello. It is his murderous intentions, not his loyal service that will be with Othello forever.

Iago's promotion provides him with closer proximity to Othello and provides him with more of his victim's trust. From here Iago is easily able to persuade Othello of Desdemona's purported infidelity. Soon Othello begins to confront Desdemona who naturally protests her innocence. In another revealing statement, Othello demands that Desdemona give him "the ocular proof". Like Iago's earlier statement, this one contains a double meaning that is not apparent to the recipient but that is very clear to the audience who understands the true origin of Othello's jealousy. Othello's jealousy is an invisible enemy and it is also based on events that never took place. How can Desdemona give Othello visual evidence of her innocence if her guilt is predicated on accusations that have no true shape or form? She can't. Othello is asking Desdemona to do the impossible, which means that her subsequent murder is only a matter of course.

I know that to a lot of young people this play must seem dreadfully boring and meaningless. One thing you can keep in mind is that the audience in Shakespeare's time did not have the benefit of cool things such as movies, and videos. The downside of this is that Shakespeare's plays are not visually stimulating to an audience accustomed to today's entertainment media. But the upside is that since Shakespeare had to tell a complex story with simple tools, he relied heavily on an imaginative use of language and symbols. Think of what it meant to an all White audience in a very prejudiced time to have a Black man at the center of a play. That character really stood out-almost like an island. He was vulnerable and exposed to attitudes that he could not perceive directly but which he must have sensed in some way.

Shakespeare set this play in two locations, Italy and Cypress. To an Elizabethan audience, Italy represented an exotic place that was the crossroads of many different civilizations. It was the one place where a Black man could conceivably hold a position of authority. Remember that Othello is a mercenary leader. He doesn't command a standing army and doesn't belong to any country. He is referred to as "the Moor" which means he could be from any part of the Arab world from Southern Spain to Indonesia. He has no institutional or national identity but is almost referred to as a phenomenon. (For all the criticism he has received in this department, Shakespeare was extrordinarlily attuned to racism and in this sense he was well ahead of his time.) Othello's subsequent commission as the Military Governor of Cypress dispatches him to an even more remote and isolated location. The man who stands out like an island is sent to an island. His exposure and vulnerability are doubled just as a jealous and murderous psychopath decides to destroy him.

Iago is probably the only one of Shakespeare's villains who is evil in a clinical sense rather than a human one. In Kind Lear, Edmund the bastard hatches a murderous plot out of jealousy that is similar to Iago's. But unlike Iago, he expresses remorse and attempts some form of restitution at the end of the play. In the Histories, characters like Richard III behave in a murderous fashion, but within the extreme, political environment in which they operate, we can understand their motives even if we don't agree with them. Iago, however, is a different animal. His motives are understandable up to the point in which he destroys Michael Cassio but then they spin off into an inexplicable orbit of their own. Some have suggested that Iago is sexually attracted to Othello, which (if its true) adds another meaning to the phrase "I am thine forever". But even if we buy the argument that Iago is a murderous homosexual, this still doesn't explain why he must destroy Othello. Oscar Wilde once wrote very beautifully of the destructive impact a person can willfully or unwittingly have on a lover ("for each man kills the things he loves") but this is not born out in the play. Instead, Shakespeare introduces us to a new literary character-a person motivated by inexplicable evil that is an entity in itself. One of the great ironies of this play is that Othello is a character of tragically visible proportions while Iago is one with lethally invisible ones.

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Summary: greatest depiction of evil?
Review: The literary heritage of Satan is upheld in this great work of psychological, Machavellian fiction. That should be enough to have you buy and read it right there.

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Summary: this is not othello!
Review: One of my main concerns in looking at the reviews for this novel were that most of them reviewed not this version of the play, but were reviewing the actual play by shakespeare itself. While I considered it kind of funny that people would take the time to give a bad review to a play that has been considered one of the great treasures of English literature for centuries, I thought it was somewhat tragic that they would give a bad review based solely in some cases on what could only be called a synopsis of the original work. True, the author went through the trouble of changing the race of a couple of characters, and in effect ruined a lot of the drama of the original work, but largely this is simply a poorly written synopsis of a literary classic. The problem with all such watered down versions of the original works is that they are not the original work. The original work, while it may be hard to understand, is a work of art, anything that merely gives the gist of the action in the original play is going to necessarily lose a lot of the original language and the original art. This novel is no different. Read the original!

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Summary: The illusion of trust and the semblance of honesty
Review: "Othello" is a wonderfully constructed tragedy. At its core, we have Othello, an experienced black general, who is however terribly naive off the battle field and puts his trust in anyone who seems remotely honest. After his marriage to Desdemona, a white senator's daughter, Othello departs with her to Cyprus to fight the Turcs. Once there, however, his ensign Iago proceeds to torment him by suggesting that Desdemona is unfaithful to him; Othello believes him and thus leads the play to its tragic ending. What is played upon here is the subtle difference between semblance and truth - Othello trusts too easily the ironicaly called "honest Iago" and only believes what he sees. He demands proof, but the "proof" that Iago gives him is nothing more than a subtle game of illusion in which Iago seems honest and Desdemona unfaithful. Language plays an interesting part also, with Othello believing every one of Iago's sly suggestions and interpreting Desdemona's innocent replys as proof of her infidelity. The play is constructed around two couples: Othello and Desdemona, Iago and his wife Emilia. Both are jealous men, Iago believing his wife has been unfaithful to him with the general - and yet Othello isn't, like Iago, evil by nature, just a weak trusting fool. Desdemona and Emilia are both innocent of these charges, and yet the former is more pure and naive than the down to earth Emilia.What is remarkable in this play is the tension between conflicting forces or themes: between the honest Othello and the evil Iago; between the "angel" Desdemona and, in turn, the "devil" Othello/Iago; between illusion and truth; jealousy and trust; appearances and proof; good and evil, black and white. Like King Lear, like OEdipus, Othello is blind to the truth and only realises it too late.

Rating:
Summary: Othello
Review: I thought it was a great book. I was a little hard to understand at first, but take your time with it. Read it slow and make sure that you understand what characters are talking. I think some of the fighting acts with Iago verses Rodrigo are pretty powerful. There is alot of jelousy that comes with this book. People back in the dark days seemed never to get along. Desdamona is one person in this book that really stands out she is Othello's wife; tell the evil ------ ? I won't spoil it for you that way you have to read this book for yourself. I think you will enjoy it give it a try.