Learning on ScreenOthello (2010, BBC audio)
Listening against the background of contemporary British politics, as the former insults of election enemies evolve into a fluent language of coalition, one is reminded of the vast range demanded by the part of Othello, the bloody soldier who tries, not just to turn politician, but also to turn husband. Henry seems least at ease when Othello defends his wooing of Desdemona to the assembled Venetian senators; he cannot quite match the articulate, impassioned statesman which James Earl Jones delivers when – in another moment of recent electoral resonance – he performed the same speech for the Obama family at the Whitehouse (http://tinyurl.com/yj57bhf). Rather it is as ‘honest Iago’ gnaws away at his few certainties that Henry hits his stride, culminating in his long low growl of rage as Othello prowls around the sleeping Desdemona. His ‘Put out the light and then put out the light’ leaves us in no doubt that, however much his final eloquent suicide will seek to present it otherwise, this is brutal premeditated murder.
‘Just’ listening also brings new attention to the female voices of Shakespeare’s play. As Desdemona (Jessica Harris) addresses the Senate, we catch the possibility of a confident, married Cordelia; elsewhere we find echoes of Juliet, a playful little girl pretending to be all grown up as she acts as Cassio’s advocate. But in the final scenes it is Emilia (Sarah Poyzer) who steals the show as she slowly realises just how deep her husband’s betrayal has been and just how implicated she herself is in the tragedy. The sound of Iago drawing his sword on her is chilling. Othello and Iago, wife-killers both.
Dr Deana Rankin
E-mail: Deana.Rankin@rhul.ac.uk
