The ShakespeConference: SHK 20.0204 Thursday, 30 April 2009
[1] From: Louis Swilley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 28 Apr 2009 13:59:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0194 Playing Iago
[2] From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 29 Apr 2009 15:50:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0187 Playing Iago
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Louis Swilley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 28 Apr 2009 13:59:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0194 Playing Iago
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0194 Playing Iago
John W Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
>It is the duty of every director and every actor of roles of
>villains to make him/her as sympathetic to the audience as
>possible. In the recent Alley production of "Othello",
>Desdemona knelt before Iago, weeping and begging him to
>help her convince Othello of her devotion; Iago moved his
>hand over her bowed head and was about to caress it in
>sympathy - but then quickly brought his hand behind his
>back with his fist clenched.
>
>In other words, he rudely and impertinently intruded something into
>the play's text that is not there.
[L. S.: How does this moment of Iago's sympathy for Desdemona radically
alter the text? It is, after all, Othello against whom Iago is working,
not Desdemona. Is it essential to Iago's portrayal that he should NEVER
show any doubt or regret about what he is doing? Should we not be
carfeful that we not present a villain as a sociopath?]
>Unfortunately there was nothing else in the production to pick up on
>and continue or reflect this humanizing moment for the character. In
>a long-ago production of "Romeo and Juliet", John Woodvine as Capulet
>raged against his daughter for refusing to marry Paris -- but broke
>into tears in the midst of his rage.
>
>Thus making complete hash of the plot, which demands that Juliet find
>herself trapped with no exit.
[L. S.: There was no exit offered. Capulet's weeping did not change his
determination to see Juliet married to Paris, nor need it. ]
>These humanizing corrections are necessary; otherwise we are merely
>given the one-dimensional, "you-must-pay-the-rent" villain of cheap
>drama.
>
>Is cheap sentiment, then, the only alternative? I have known men as
devoid
>of conscience as Iago, and they wasted no time on crocodile tears, for
they
>were quite certain that they were in the right, in whatever mad sense
"right"
>bore for them.
[L. S.: Isn't "mad" the operative word here? A mad (insane) character
has no moral responsibility for his actions and therefore very little
potential as a dramatic figure; he has become merely pathetic. He is no
more than a deadly storm or plague - or a mad Ophelia. We miss the
complexity of Iago's tormented character if we excuse him as mad.(Even
Milton's Satan momentarily regrets his decision to destroy the happiness
of Adam and Eve. Is he not the more moving character for that?) ]
[L. Swilley]
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 29 Apr 2009 15:50:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0187 Playing Iago
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0187 Playing Iago
Alan Pierpoint writes:
>"Years ago I saw a stage actor play Richard III and Iago within the
span of two
>or three years, the former most entertainingly and the latter pretty
much the
>same -- archly, with a see-how-wicked-I-am wink at the audience. It
worked with
>Richard -- the role invites an amused, self-referential
interpretation -- but I
>felt that it trivialized the role of Iago. The character is just evil;
the usual
>explanations of racism and resentment about being passed over just don't
>account for his evilness."
Iago's class resentment seems deep and abiding in both his conduct and
ironic echoing of others' patronizing use of 'good' and 'honest'. Like
Hamlet and Macbeth, he lacks advancement. He may be too perceptive,
however, to be himself a racist yet ever ready to exploit the racism of
his compatriots for his own ends. Iago's envy allegorically recalls of
course the furious envy of the brightest angel Lucifer, darkening as he
fell, against his Lord for favoring the human Adam (Cassio?) and later
the redeemer Jesus (the sacrificial "no-body", Desdemona?).
"The actor playing Iago should play him as though he (actor and
character) were a budding
serial killer[...]."
Budding? Both Othello and Iago have been trained serial killers for much
of their lives in the endless wars that make ambition virtue.
Peter Groves relates:
>"in the 1930s Olivier once played the part as motivated by
>repressed homoerotic desire for Othello."
Such a conception of the role may be not be as unnatural as it first
appears, given Iago's aside on 'clyster pipes' and report of Cassio's
dream. Indeed, a creative director would have his Iago gesture bawdily
on uttering the phrase "prae-posterous con-conclusions", which in all
its senses may describe what the play as a whole is about. King James in
his letters to his minions recounts their own leg-crossing bedplay,
reminiscent of Iago's report. Italian friars and monks would thunder
against the sodomy rife in their communities, branding this evil a 'fire
in the city' or burning plague, inviting the wrath of God by flood or
fire ("Fire and brimstone!"). In their sexual corruption, were the
Christian 'Sodomites' all that different from their enemy 'Ottamites',
ever maligned for buggary and promiscuity? Fearing divine wrath,
Venetian authorities time and again sponsored harsh legislation against
sodomy on their ships. Is this why the Turkish fleet drowned on changing
destination from well fortified martial Rhodes (home of the Colossus,
the Sun God HEL-ios) to passion-ridden Venereal Cyprus? Does it
prefigure sun-burnished Ot-HEL-lo's own loss of martial constancy on
untamed Cyprus? Is it Othello's last service to the state to slay the
last Turk left standing, the Turk within, by suicide? Are both Iago and
Othello in the end instruments of that state in executing both Desdemona
and her lord for their gross revolt against Brabantio and his class?
Isn't Othello the Signory's own still loyal Iago, punished in the end
for daring to wed the noble Desdemona, both general and ensign fated to
be dis-placed by the same 'noble' Lieu-tenant Cassio?
Joe Egert
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