All theatres were closed down by the Puritan government on 6 September 1642. Upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, two patent companies (the King's Company and the Duke's Company) were established, and the existing theatrical repertoire divided between them: Othello being allocated to the King's Company's repertoire. [192] These patents stated that "all the women's parts to be acted in either of the said two companies for the time to come may be performed by women". The first professional acting appearance by a woman on the English stage was that of Desdemona in Othello on 8th December 1660, although history does not record who took the role. [193] [194] Margaret Hughes is the first woman known to have played Desdemona. [195]

Neill, 2006, pp.122-123 citing Virginia Mason Vaughan's "Othello: A Contextual History". The quotation is a parody of Othello 3.3.387-388. Part of the explosion of the Romantic movement in France was a fashion for re-writing English plays as melodrama, including Alfred de Vigny's 1829 Othello adaptation Le More de Venise. [292] Significant variants of the game, such as where the starting position differs from standard or the objective is to have the fewest pieces one's color at the end, are sometimes—but rarely—played. Gillies, John; Minami, Ryuta; Li, Ruru and Trivedi, Poonam "Shakespeare on the Stages of Asia" in Wells, Stanley and Stanton, Sarah (eds.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage", Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp.259-283 at pp.260-261.

Plot

Iago refuses to explain his motives, vowing to remain silent from that moment on. Lodovico apprehends both Iago and Othello for the murders of Roderigo, Emilia, and Desdemona, but Othello commits suicide. Lodovico appoints Cassio as Othello's successor and exhorts him to punish Iago justly. He then denounces Iago for his actions and leaves to tell the others what has happened. Critics have naturally focused on the two central male roles. But Emilia becomes a powerful role in the final act. Indeed Charlotte Cushman's Emilia was said to upstage Edwin Forrest's Othello in 1845. [211] And when Fanny Kemble played Desdemona in 1848 she changed the performance tradition. Previously, Desdemonas had (in her words) "always appeared to me to acquiesce with wonderful equanimity in their assasination" but Kemble, a passionate feminist and abolitionist, decided "I shall make a desperate fight for it, for I feel horribly at the idea of being murdered in my bed." [212] Ultimately Iago provides no answer – refusing, at the end of the play, to reveal his motive: "Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word." [161] [162] Double time scheme [ edit ]

Thatleaves Irene Jacob, as Desdemona, to complete the film's catalog of charactersat right angles to one another. Jacob is a wonderful actress, as anyone whoremembers Krzysztof Kieslowski's " The Double Life of Veronique" or" Red" will recall. But she is appearing here in a play byShakespeare, whose language is so crucial that the scholar Harold Bloom makes ashow of preferring his Shakespeare in text readings rather than stageperformances. Irene Jacob, who is Swiss, is not at home in English, andcertainly not at home in Shakespeare, although she finds a heartbreakingphysical gesture at the moment she is being smothered by Othello: Her handreaches out to caress him. Michael Anderegg, Orson Welles, Shakespeare and Popular Culture (Columbia University Press, New York, 1999) pp.110-20, which contains a detailed analysis (and criticism) of the competence of the restoration. Othello’s lieutenant. Cassio is a young and inexperienced soldier, whose high position is much resented by Iago. Truly devoted to Othello, Cassio is extremely ashamed after being implicated in a drunken brawl on Cyprus and losing his place as lieutenant. Iago uses Cassio’s youth, good looks, and friendship with Desdemona to play on Othello’s insecurities about Desdemona’s fidelity. Crowther, Bosley (13 September 1955). "Othello (1955) Screen: Orson Welles Revises 'Othello'; Scraps Shakespeare's Plot for Visual Effect". The New York Times . Retrieved 2012-01-07.

Play Act 1 Scene 1

Othello (full title: The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice) is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603. The story revolves around two characters, Othello and Iago. Can we imagine [Shakespeare] so utterly ignorant as to make a barbarous negro plead royal birth, - at a time, too, when negroes were not known except as slaves? ... and most surely as an English audience was disposed at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it would be something monstrous to conceive this beautiful Venetian girl falling in love with a veritable negro. It would argue a disproportionateness, a want of balance, in Desdemona, which Shakespeare does not appear to have in the least contemplated." [93] Wells, Stanley (ed.) "Oxford Shakespeare Topics: Shakespeare in the Theatre– An Anthology of Criticism", Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.112–113. The first main scene shows Iago complaining to Roderigo about not being advised of the marriage between Othello and Desdemona. Roderigo is contemplating killing himself but Iago says, “Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon,” meaning Iago would rather be a baboon than kill himself over a woman. Iago further says, "Put but money in thy purse," and urges Roderigo to sell all his lands and give the money to Iago, who will use it to convince Desdemona to have sex.

Shakespeare's direct sources for the story do not include any threat of warfare: it seems to have been Shakespeare's innovation to set the story at the time of a threatened Turkish invasion of Cyprus - apparently fixing it in the events of 1570. Those historical events would however have been well known to Shakespeare's original audience, who would therefore have been aware that - contrary to the action of the play - the Turks took Cyprus, and still held it. [5] [6]Bate, Jonathan; Rasmussen, Eric (2009). Othello. Basingstoke, England: Macmillan. p.3. ISBN 978-0-230-57621-6. Orgel, Stephen "Introduction" in Sutherland, John and Watts, Cedric (eds.) "Henry V, War Criminal? & Other Shakespeare Puzzles" Oxford World's Classics series, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.ix-xvi at p.xi. Austern, Linda Phyllis "The Music in the Play" in Neil, Michael (ed.) and Shakespeare, William "Othello" The Oxford Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, 2006 pp.445-454 at p.445.