Crazy Shakespearean Question
Well, Happy New Year, and yes, it is possible to post here. I've been very uninspired to blog these days. It could be that I'm overly busy reading Shakespeare. Anyway, here is the difficult question that require deep thinking.
CAN BOONSBORO HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA ETHICALLY DO A PRODUCTION OF "OTHELLO" BY PORTRAYING OTHELLO WITH A WHITE MAN?
Again, I'm fishing. Tell me what you think.
MjB
CAN BOONSBORO HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA ETHICALLY DO A PRODUCTION OF "OTHELLO" BY PORTRAYING OTHELLO WITH A WHITE MAN?
Again, I'm fishing. Tell me what you think.
MjB
posted by Mr. Bair at 4:30 PM
25 Comments:
face paint is magical. and we are talented to begin with so it shouldnt come to that.
No, the play isn't about racism. The animosity towards him wasn't based on race, except for Iago. However, that really wasn't Iago's primary problem with Othello.
MjB
IM ALIVE!!!!
IS this even working?
YES IT IS IT TOOK ME 6 MONTHS BUT I GOT IT!
I believe that yes, we could ethicly do it, but it would require an extremely talented actor as othello to do so. The reason being, as you heard during A raisen in the son, our complete lack of exposure to black people in our school gives us a very innacurate idea of that race. half of the people trying to "sound black" during a raisin in the son either sounded like colonel sanders or a gross exageration of the southern black accent
My fear is that in attempt to "seem black", our othello would have a hard time captureing the true essence of a black accent and instead exaggerate it.
I'm not saying that is racist, because the truth is if you look at my foreigner accent, i exaggerate the usual southern accent, which i admit, conformed to my subconcious view of the southern redneck. That is no better than someome falling into the boonsboro subconcious view of blacks, but you have to admit, that is still a bit more of a touchy issue to exaggerate a black stereotype than to exaggerate a southern white stereotype.
Truly, I think with proper training, we could do it. I don't believe it is any less ethical to cross race lines in acting as it is to cross gender lines, as we often do. We just have to know that were treding on hot coals with the race issue more so, and compensate with better acting.
replace all "son"'s with "sun", dont know how i made that mistake
I think we could ethically,
I would either want to see Othello portrayed as the actor would normally without trying to 'act black' with the addition of some darker makeup. I'm not exactly sure where Othello hails from, for some reason I am thinking he is part spanish, or if he has an accent of any sort. Those are different than any stereotype that we would generally draw of someone who is black living in America today, and I'm sure would be played differently.
You would have to get a good actor or potray in some way that the character's ethnicity was different.
I'd be loathe to alter Othello's skin color in the play, because it was written that way for some reasons, I'm sure, and it's nice to see someone in a leading role not white in a shakespeare play.
It would be much easier to have a black actor, but I agree with will when he said an actor should be able to play other races/skin colors if he/she can play other ethnicities and sexes.
I have to agree with Julia. Ethically, I don't think there is a problem with it. However, Shakespeare chose a black man for the character of Othello, and (from the standpoint of a creator) I don't think large liberties should be taken on the creation of another person.
Adam
a counter-point to adam's, is it taking really any liberty at all if we were to portray him in the exact same way, not dependant on the original race of the actor? wouldn't it, by saying that the actors race is a factor, be making race more of a factor than the play itself does?
Just playing a smidge of devil's advocate. though i kind of agree with the devil in this case.
rock on
Just how magical is face paint, anyway? I don't think we'll have a problem with an actor sounding like a modern stereotype. Othello was a moor in Venice, not an African-American in Chicago. I guess we could theoretically make Othello white, but I agree with Julia that it's much more interesting to have him as a black man. I also think that Shakespeare was way ahead of his time when he wrote this play. How long did it take America to start writing stories with black heroes? Granted, England might not have a history of racism as dramatic as ours, but still. Shakespeare wouldn't have made him black without a reason.
Didn't shakespeare have white men play all of his parts, even the women?
Clarification Bair or Julia?
But, ethically, the play is public domain. That means that we're free to do whatever we want with it. Changing things and experimenting with story lines has to be one of the reasons public domain exists. It's not an ethical problem, I just happen to like it better with a black character.
Wow...lots of clarifications. Foremost, Othello is NO HERO. He is far from it. He is as tragic as Oedipus, and as a woman, Othello is your worst sexist nightmare.
Secondly, a Moor is a black Muslim from Northern Africa. Shakespeare didn't create this character, as usual; he borrowed him. Thus, his choice of Othello as a black man was neither novel nor ambitious. It was history.
Thirdly, England's racism is our racism. Slavery was a very popular practice of the British, obviously. However, the British were primarily utilizing the southern end of the continent, and of course, the islands of the Carribean.
Fourthly, I didn't want to add the aspect of making an Othello "black through makeup." That doesn't play into the real reason I'm asking this question. The question is whether the play Othello loses anything by the title character being white. Then, is it ethical to change the race of the title character.
Wow...lots of good stuff everyone. Please, keep debating. I like it.
MjB
something is going to be offensive to someone
ohhh, well that kind of screws my whole argument, I didnt know we were talking making the character itself white. I should have read more carefully. I resind my comments on Adam's comment.
As for this new argument, if we are doing straight shakespeare, than I do belive there is an ethical problem with portraying him as white.
A moor is not exactly a commonplace character of shakespeareian literature at that time. While the story is not about "Hey this guy is a moor! lets examine white to moor relationships!", it still contains some aspects of that.
I don't belive a play has to be 100% about a topic to warrent protecting that topic. We may not even notice alot of the things that may be reminesent of societal quandries of the time, things that were written in that shakespearean whites and moors caught, but just go way over our heads.
You wouldn't be "destroying" the plot or anything by making othello white, but you wouldn't be keeping it straight shakespeare either. Who knows, maybe well have 1 really angry moor historian in the audiance that doesn't understand why his favorite socital observasions within a play have been shattered by our careless disregard for the purity of art.
Just a thought.
I wouldn't worry about the one purist in the audience. She'll probably be on stage somewhere.
MjB
Ouch, that was rough! In any case, the public domain doesn't exist so that people can change and interpret others' ideas. It exists so that, after proper monetary dues have been paid to the author/composer/whoever, the common person is free to use their work without cost. As a composer, I urge you to look at this from Shakespeare's perspective. Granted he's been dead for quite a while and is not likely to put up any arguments, but still. It's really hurtful to see a work of yours be changed. You wrote it for a reason, and if you cared enough to write it and share it with the world, it should be protected.
Adam
Do it if that is what you wish. Anything is possible!
Rossen
i like being difficult, so i'm going to say that it all depends on your ethics.
i for one don't think we should do it b/c it would probably offend someone and there are many other plays we could do.
I'm posting this based on my gut instinct. Changing a character makes my stomach cringe. When girls are cast in a production as men, we did not change the characters to suit them as females. Besides the obvious lack of a Moor in BHS, stage make-up can do wonders, why is it neccessary to change the character? (Or why do you desire to do so Mr. Bair?)
I didn't really voice this after my confusion was cleared up today because I really despise people jumping on other peoples opinions like we sometimes do, however, but I believe that it most certainly could be done. And putting all ethical ideals aside...honestly people will be too busy paying attention so that they are keeping up with the straight Shakespeare dialogue to spend time pondering why Othello is black.
I guess I need a clarifaction again, were we to change this characters race, making othello white, we would not change any dialouge, and everyone would still call him a moor, and the audiance just pretends that he is? Or would it entail actually changing the character within the plays context to a white man, thus changing some dialouge?
I don't think it's bad to have a white person portray a Moor. In fact, I think our society needs to move on with stuff like that. However, I am still very much opposed to changing the character to white and calling it Shakespeare's Othello. I don't mind if you rename it or identify that it is different, but I do not agree with calling it the same thing.
Adam
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