Do we have one of these yet? Because Oh My God I Have Just Finished a) reading Othello for class b) watching the highschool!AU of Othello in class and just. This play. Is so good. And actually pretty topical still and just. /flails. Seriously though Shakespeare would be my fandom if it wasn't such a tiny one :/
man count me into the Shakespeare fandom! i actually ended up teaching Shakespeare for 2 semesters when i was in grad school-- it's not my specialization, at all. so when i was talking to the department head about teaching, he said "we've got Shakespeare's Comedies or Literature of the English Civil War" my response was basically "well, i've at least read Shakespeare's comedies!" and that's how i got the job teaching Shakespeare. it was really fun actually, because i got to pick which plays we studied! (12th Night, Taming of the Shrew, and Midsummer Night's Dream) i've liked Shakespeare since high school, though, i bought a Complete Works when i was 17 and read... ok, a lot of it, i definitely have not read most of the histories. i took a Shakespeare class in my own undergrad, too! i disagreed with the professor a lot on writing and essay style, but i also learned a lot and it was actually really fun. for a literature nerd like me anyway. Othello-- man, it is AMAZING how on point that play still is. have you seen the Kenneth Branagh one? it's pretty good and Laurence Fishburne is Othello! and it was the first filmed version with an actual for-real black person as the lead... in 19 goddamn 95, i mean god damn. it was topical back then too, of course. i apologize if your class already covered it, but: in 1596, Queen Elizabeth-- you know, Shakespeare's patron-- issued proclamations to expel black people from England, and she even hired a guy specifically to deport people. she issued another proclamation in 1601, but then she died in 1603. then, in what i am just SURE is a complete coincidence, Othello was first performed in 1604. i love Shakespeare.
OH MY GOD THAT IS SO COOL! Funnily enough I have actually been in 12th Night and I was in Midsummer Twice (Olivia, and a fairy and later Demetrius years later), though it was a school play for 12th night so :P We saw scenes from it in english class, especially Iago (he was so GOOD) but we watched O (2001) in full over two classes. Yeah- I heard about the blackface thing. ugh. WAIT NO I HAD NOT HEARD OF THIS, THAT'S HORRIFYING AND ALSO SORT OF FASCINATING
ahhhhhh i am jealous!!!!! i'm not an actor but i really wish i could, i'd love to actually be in a Shakespeare play. especially if you got to play Olivia, who has some of the best lines oh man, doesn't even matter if it was a school play i still bet that was fun. oh my god. the Laurence Olivier one from 1965 is painful. like he's one of the greatest shakespearan actors in film history... but the makeup just looks horrible. and i mean that from a technical makeup artistry point of view, the makeup and wig are distractingly bad. plus it's. you know. blackface. >_> RIGHT?!?! i mean, as far as we know she wasn't terribly successful, but apparently they were in some bad economic times and so blaming the foreigners seemed like a super PR move. they all came over here and TOOK OUR JOBS, "they are fostered and relieved here to the great annoyance of our own liege people, that want the relief, which those people consume." it's also important to note, for historical context, that the actual skin color wasn't as much an issue as it was a signifier for "foreign" and/or "not Protestant." (Elizabeth being Protestant is an important aspect/theme of her reign.) basically, before the 19th century, religion was a much more important "Us/Them" division than race. i mean there definitely is a racialized component, but nowhere near 21st-century-america levels.
Well, it was a super cut down version of the play so I didn't get a lot of the sassy lines :( but still. the costume was epic. Ugh. That's just. Ugh. I smell Donald Trump. Which is worrying because of all the time periods to emulate I wouldn't emulate you know. ENGLAND BEFORE LIKE. RECENTLY. Wow. Yeah- our teacher heavily emphasized the fact that a Moor wouldn't have necessarily looked what we consider black now adays. Also, before reading Othello we read Merchant of Venice and so we also discussed, well. Shylock. Which was fascinating because she (our teacher) is culturally Jewish, as is a good chunk of my class (we even have a girl named Jessica :/) so she had that perspective on the whole thing.
(re: your teacher talking about race/religion stuff in Shakes) nice! Merchant of Venice is a good lead-up to Othello i think. and yeah, "moor" was basically "anyone from southern europe or northern africa, likely muslim", so that can cover a pretty wide range of people! apparently in the 19th century the muslim aspect was played up more-- check out this Othello costume from 1896: Spoiler: whoa this image is huge like that guy is straight-up arab! i think it would be interesting today to do an Othello performance in a modern setting where Othello is muslim, maybe arab or pakistani. because islamophobia has become such an issue, so there would be the muslim does violent crime = terrorist specter hanging over the events of the play. it would definitely be pretty poignant i think! AHHHHH sorry for going into teacher mode, you triggered my special interest trap. :P
no it's okay THAT IS INCREDIBLY INTERESTING! It's great also cause this is happening concurrent to us learning middle ages history cause i go to a good school.
Okay yes I need that adaptation like yesterday I am absolutely in the Shakespeare fandom! I had an amazing high school theatre program and we did a lot of Shakespeare with a fun twist: 90% of our department was female and my director was just like "fuck it, play your character as whatever gender makes you happy" so we had lots of lesbians :D Also post-apocalyptic Macbeth that was fun and, uh, may have inspired rather a lot of my fanfiction...
Guys there's a bollywood musical version of Othello called Omkara. It seems to be pretty good. Also apparently Spoiler Emilia kills Iago in this version
WATCH THE IAN MCKELLAN RICHARD III IT TAKES PLACE IN LIKE NAZI GERMANY OR W/E AND IT'S REALLY AWESOME THEY SING A MARLOWE POEM AT ONE POINT (sry i'm a little drunk. sign up for hyrax's Intro to Shakespeare, it's nothing but screaming about random facts and performances in differing states of sobriety)
I HAVE HEARD OF THAT ONE AND IT LOOKS AMAZING CAUSE THEY BUILD THIS ENTIRE ALTERNATE HISTORY AND IT'S SO COOL AND JUST /flails.
yeah i said "or w/e" because i think it's actually Nazi England technically? but yeah it takes place in the 1930s with nazi-fascists and it just. works SO. WELL. it's from the 90s i think and yeah try and find it if you can, it's one of my fave shakespeare adaptations. <3
I need to read Richard III though seriously- and @hyrax have you heard of a guy named Kyle Kalgren who does a show called Brows Held High? He's done some reviews of various shakespeare movies (x) and (x), which are the playlists for his two series "summer of shakespeare" and "shakespeare month" the former being "shakespeare done in other cultures/adaptations of shakespeare plays (so, a Japanese Macbeth done in the style of Kabuki theater, West Side Story, Omkara, a sort of Italian version of Titus Andronicus, etc) and the latter is some random shakespeare adaptations using the text (including the rule 34 of midsummer night's dream, which is actually a funny video but i won't rec to you because i'm a minor and do not wish to get you in trouble or something). he's generally pretty cool.
