The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0216 Wednesday, 6 May 2009
[1] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Saturday, 02 May 2009 17:15:51 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
[2] From: David Evett <
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Date: Saturday, 2 May 2009 17:25:16 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
[3] From: Eric Johnson-DeBaufre <
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Date: Sunday, 3 May 2009 09:44:02 -0400
Subj: Iago and Venetian meritocracy
[4] From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Sunday, 3 May 2009 13:53:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
[5] From: Julia Griffin <
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Date: Sunday, 03 May 2009 21:32:08 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
[6] From: Donald Bloom <
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Date: Monday, 4 May 2009 15:44:59 -0500
Subj: RE: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Saturday, 02 May 2009 17:15:51 -0400
Subject: 20.0210 Playing Iago
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
Lynn Brenner doesn't feel any more "twinges of sympathy" for Capulet
than she does for Iago. Not even when he is content to allow Romeo and
his Montague buddies crash his party with impunity and rails against
Tybalt for his intolerance?
Capulet strikes me as one of the good guys. His insistence on Juliet's
marriage to Paris is in ignorance of the actual situation and at least
as much for Juliet's good as his own. I don't see how we can ascribe any
tears he sheds in the scene in which he threatens to disown Juliet as
"for himself" alone, certainly unless we see it performed that way.
[2] -----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <
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Date: Saturday, 2 May 2009 17:25:16 -0400
Subject: 20.0210 Playing Iago
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
"I'm hard put to think of a less likeable character than Iago."
"Likeable" is not a term you can define sharply, but anybody playing
this role has to deal with the many data of the text that show almost
all the other characters treating Iago as though they find him
charming, trustworthy, truthful, and probably thrifty, brave, clean,
and reverent, too. During those scenes, playing the part in ways that
make the behavior of the others on stage incomprehensible or at least
stupid seems to me sure to arouse big-time cognitive dissonance -- and
to lose the delicious dramatic irony produced by those other moments,
especially the soliloquies, that reveal his other side. But as so often
in Shakespeare it's the actions that speak most strongly to us, not the
words (consider all those places where the words of the text, even
their own words, proclaim womens' inconstancy while their actions
bespeak the opposite). On those grounds, I see no reason why Iago
should not charm us, as well -- love the sinner even as we detest the sin.
Veterans of this list will have seen before my comments about Ian
Richardson's performance as that other Iago, Edmund, in Peter Brook's
*Lear*, who took his first soliloquy with his legs dangling over the
apron, as winsome as may be, and stood up again having made all of us
in the house at least half-willing confederates in his plot. (He took a
similar approach as Bill Haydon in the fine TV adaptation of Le Carre's
*Tinker, Tailor* and indeed made a career as a charming Machiavel.)
Far more interesting than somebody whose villainy oozes in an apparent
way all the time.
Disarmingly,
David Evett
[3] -----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Johnson-DeBaufre <
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Date: Sunday, 3 May 2009 09:44:02 -0400
Subject: Iago and Venetian meritocracy
Larry Weiss writes:
"I don't see Iago as a typical proto-democrat reacting against the
unjust privileges of the upper classes. Ironically, Venice's incomplete
adoption of meritocratic policies -- the kind of thing that allows
someone like Othello to become commander-in-chief -- causes Iago to
resent more acutely the slight of being passed over in favour of a git
like Cassio. Iago sees himself (correctly, to my mind) as the only truly
intelligent person he knows. His actions are all designed to prove that,
to himself at least."
The language of meritocracy muddies the waters. Iago's resentment of
Cassio is not that he is "a git," although Iago clearly devalues
Cassio's "bookish theoric" (1.1.23). Rather, Iago objects to the changed
grounds by which one obtains "preferment": "letter and affection"
(1.1.35) vs. "old gradation, where each second / Stood heir to th'
first" (1.1.36-37).
There isn't a meritocratic impulse to be found here. Iago doesn't see
himself as meriting advancement in the terms in which we understand
"meritocracy" (i.e. based on demonstrated ability); rather, he sees
himself as deserving the office simply because he has worked his way
through the channels and put in his time.
Iago is thus a defender of hide-bound tradition and hereditary office
holding. He's the voice of conservative reaction.
Eric Johnson-DeBaufre
[4] -----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Sunday, 3 May 2009 13:53:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0210 Playing Iago
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
Larry Weiss writes:
"And from Joe Egert:
>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.
I don't see Iago as a typical proto-democrat reacting against the unjust
privileges of the upper classes. Ironically, Venice's incomplete
adoption of meritocratic policies -- the kind of thing that allows
someone like Othello to become commander-in-chief -- causes Iago to
resent more acutely the slight of being passed over in favour of a git
like Cassio. Iago sees himself (correctly, to my mind) as the only truly
intelligent person he knows. His actions are all designed to prove that,
to himself at least."
But, Larry, haven't you heard? Democracies are spawned and nourished on
envy. It is their natural aliment, their lifeblood. Though the delivery
may be boody and as ugly as the Furies' face, they are nonetheless
envy's natural creation. For envy uses the resentments of creatures like
Iago, Edmund, Shylock, and Cassius both to destabilize hierarchies and
as the ultimate check and balance in any republican polity of fallen
Man. The reason the Venetian Signory employed an alien like Othello to
lead their host was to forestall another Caesar rising from their own
ranks, who might destroy their most serene republic. Outsiders like
Othello and Shylock were not bid for love, but only for their service,
as Iago clearly understood, despite the Duke's expedient judgment for
Othello and against Brabantio. Only Desdemona made the bid for love and
paid the price, thus exposing Venetian profession of its Christian
body's Pauline integration as a sham in practice.
And from Alan Pierpoint:
"Joseph Egert writes:
>Budding? Both Othello and Iago have been trained serial killers for
much of
their lives in the endless wars that make ambition virtue.<
Okay, veteran serial killer. But are you suggesting that all soldiers,
or all soldiers who kill people, are serial killers, or on the same
moral plane as Iago? Are you putting Othello on that plane?"
Unlike many early modern Bible translators, I distinguish between 'kill'
and 'murder' in accurately translating the Hebrew Commandment as "Thou
shalt not murder." Nonetheless there is a sense in which every war
machine produces 'honorable murderers' like Othello or Duncan's creature
Macbeth.
Regards,
Joe Egert
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Julia Griffin <
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Date: Sunday, 03 May 2009 21:32:08 -0400
Subject: 20.0210 Playing Iago
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
Marvin Rosenberg, in The Masks of Othello, repeats Ellen Terry's story
of playing Desdemona to Irving's Iago: Irving was so moved by her appeal
("What shall I do ..?") that his eyes filled with tears; then "seizing
on those tears as handy properties, [he] ostentatiously dashed them away
and blew his nose 'softly and with much feeling,' conjuring from true
emotion the very essence of hypocrisy".
Perhaps the Alley production and Schreiber' performance, described by
Lynn Brenner, had the same effect - and perhaps the same origin ..? In
any case, the sound of Irving blowing his nose with much feeling must
have had a powerful effect on the audience.
Julia Griffin
[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Donald Bloom <
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Date: Monday, 4 May 2009 15:44:59 -0500
Subject: 20.0210 Playing Iago
Comment: RE: SHK 20.0210 Playing Iago
At the risk of descending into mere curmudgeonry, I must confess that I
find this thread identifying Othello and Iago as serial killers puzzling.
If it is merely anti-military hyperbole, I will let it go.
But if it is meant seriously, then I have to ask where on earth it comes
from.
I can't claim any immediate knowledge of serial killers, but what I do
know suggests that their mentality is quite different from that of
professional soldiers, such as we may generalize about that group.
Of the latter, I knew quite a few at one long-lost time of my life. I
didn't like most of them and they didn't like me, but they seemed to be
particularly unlikely to follow the path taken by genuine serial killers.
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