Learner Resource 7
A racist play or a play about racism?
Focus on Othello in performance
Does Othello as we read it on the page reinforce the kind of negative racial stereotypes that
existed in Shakespeare’s day, or does it challenge them? And how can these questions be
applied to Othello in performance? These issues are complicated by the fact that the
responses of readers, critics and viewers of the play will always be conditioned by their own
attitudes to race.
Below are listed four very different productions of Othello, with related links. Research the
production you have been allocated before preparing a presentation on it, with your group, to
show the rest of the class. Try to include at least some audio-visual material.

The following prompts should help guide your thinking:

What do you find interesting about this production?

How does it engage with the issue of race?
Does anything strike you (or perhaps shock you) about the attitudes of the director and
actors involved in this production, or about the responses of critics and audience members?
1930 West End production starring Paul Robeson
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/sep/03/theatre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DF7YQrC7HM
http://theshakespeareblog.com/2011/10/paul-robeson-othello-and-mixed-britannia/
http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126876.html
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1965 film version starring Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello_(1965_film)
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D07E0D6163AEF34BC4A53DFB466838D679E
DE
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/oct/23/good-riddance-blackface-mark-lawson
http://www.arogundade.com/sir-laurence-oliviers-othello-in-blackface.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F96DlM3N5KQ
1997 Washington Shakespeare Theatre production starring Patrick Stewart
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-11-19/features/1997323051_1_othello-iago-patrickstewart
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=t1quBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=Jude+Kelly
+washington+Othello&source=bl&ots=p0loahw97t&sig=UUZcD1yKMP2kiliAd1ka7o3PMKc&hl
=en&sa=X&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBGoVChMIq83Bmt7kxgIVhN4sCh2_2Qtx#v=onepage&q=Jude%20
Kelly%20washington%20Othello&f=false
http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/articles.aspx?&id=131
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/othello-twist-on-timelesstragedy/2013/04/09/19856f18-a159-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html
2015 RSC production starring Hugh Quarshie
http://www.rsc.org.uk
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jun/12/othello-rsc-stratford-hugh-quarshie-lucianmsamati-joanna-vanderham
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/11663749/Othello-RSCStratford-review-electrifying.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/othello-rscstratforduponavon-review-racism-still-simmers-in-black-iago-production-10320449.html
http://theshakespeareblog.com/2014/10/hugh-quarshie-othello-at-last/
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