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Direct address in Othello

Direct address in Othello. EN301: Shakespeare and Selected Dramatists of His Time. DISCLAIMER: This list is still a work in progress. Please email me on S.Purcell@warwick.ac.uk if you spot any omissions!. Iago: 152 lines of direct address Othello: 62 lines of direct address

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Direct address in Othello

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  1. Direct address in Othello EN301: Shakespeare and Selected Dramatists of His Time

  2. DISCLAIMER: This list is still a work in progress. Please email me on S.Purcell@warwick.ac.uk if you spot any omissions!

  3. Iago: 152 lines of direct address • Othello: 62 lines of direct address • Everybody else: 16 lines of direct address (and no more than one speech each) • (It’s worth observing who does not get any direct address…) • Rory Kinnear on playing Iago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyoCIwJn9Ic&t=0h3m03s

  4. Othello vs. Iago • Ian McKellen on playing Iago in 1989: • “As Iago confides the truth to the audience (as always in Shakespeare), they are privy to his deceit and the gulling of Roderigo, Cassio, Desdemona and Othello himself.  It is an unfair advantage and early on Willard [White, playing Othello] accused me of trying to get the audience on my side against him.  I explained that I didn’t need to try — Shakespeare had organised it that the villain’s part should be the audience's portal into the action.  The history of the play records many more serious misunderstandings between the Moor and his Ancient.” (2003)

  5. Othello vs. Iago • James Earl Jones found this on Broadway in 1981-2: • “If Iago is a farcical villain, then Othello becomes a farcical hero, and this great tragic drama is perverted into a farce. I cannot accept this as Shakespeare’s intention. … Chris [Plummer] as Iago generated laughter at certain points in the drama. He was probably as frustrated and surprised by that laughter as anyone was, but he seemed to exploit it. As I recall, Chris said to me in Minneapolis, ‘Jimmy, this play is a bloody farce after all,’ as if to say, ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t take it seriously.’ He probably wasn’t looking for a farce, but he found one. … Some actors approach the play as farce, and I felt this was what Chris did under Peter Coe’s direction. A good director will guide to the actor into the tragedy. Iago’s cynicism should not infect the audience simply as amusement.” (2003: 82-3)

  6. Indeed, Wine notes that audiences at the production “hissed and booed the villain” and that the “mere repetition of 'honest Iago' was often enough to evoke laughter”. He reports that Newsweek suggested the play “should be retitled Iago” (1984: 63-4).

  7. Othello vs. Iago • We have already encountered Bridget Escolme’s notion of the “performance objective”: • “whereas in the naturalistic theatre it is impossible for any character to desire or have an interest in anything outside the fiction, Shakespeare’s stage figures have another set of desires and interests, inseparable from those of the actor. They want the audience to listen to them, notice them, approve their performance, ignore others on stage for their sake.” (2005: 16)

  8. Othello vs. Iago • EamonnWalker, playing Othello in 2007: • “The relationship between Tim McInnerny’s Iago and my Othello would vary. Some nights Tim would just be cheeky, and he wouldn't even know why he was being cheeky. I remember one night, during the scene in which I have to come down to stop the noise because I want to be with my wife (2.3), when Tim obstinately wouldn't move from where he was on the stage. I looked at him furiously, because if he didn't move then the play would come to a stop, and he was about to force me to take a different action to keep the play going: Iago's manipulative attitude was effectively taking over the playing of the play too.” (2014: 156-7)

  9. Audience complicity • Note that both of Iago’s first two soliloquies are in verse and come out of a scene in which he speaks prose – is the “real” Iago suddenly speaking to us? • Rory Kinnear on playing Iago in 2013: • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyoCIwJn9Ic&t=0h3m03s • Iago’s asides are some of the most daring examples of this…

  10. 2.1.168-76 2.1.196-8

  11. Iago the entertainer • Iago makes the playpossible… • “I am not what I am” (1.1.65) • “If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport.” (1.3.357-8) • “I mine own gained knowledge should profane / If I would time expend with such a snipe / But for my sport and profit.” (1.3.366-8) • “I had rather ha’ this tongue cut from my mouth / Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio” (2.3.204-5)

  12. Iago the entertainer IAGO. Are you a man? Have you a soul, or sense?God b’wi’ you; take mine office. O wretched foolThat lov’st to make thine honesty a vice!O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world:To be direct and honest is not safe.I thank you for this profit and, from hence,I'll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence. (3.3.371-7) EMILIA I will be hanged if some eternal villain,Some busy and insinuating rogue,Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,Have not devised this slander. I will be hanged else. IAGO Fie, there is no such man. It is impossible. (4.2.134-8)

  13. The closing invocation of “Hell and Night” seems almost to summon the storm that opens Act Two… 1.3.365-86

  14. Iago as Vice • 3.3 is often called the “temptation scene” • At what point in it is Othello “tempted”? • “I am bound to thee for ever.” (3.3.217) • “I am your own for ever.” (3.3.482) • Iago as devil in final scene: OTHELLO. I look down towards his feet, but that's a fable.If that thou best a devil, I cannot kill thee. [He wounds IAGO] LODOVICO. Wrench his sword from him. IAGO. I bleed, sir, but not killed. (5.2.292-4)

  15. Iago as playwright • Martin L. Wine: • “Iago dominates the first half of the play, and through his soliloquies he mediates between us and the other characters. In effect, he becomes a playwright-within-the-play. Simply as playwrights, he and Shakespeare share the same goal: to create the dramatic illusion of reality from mere words.” (1984: 30)

  16. 2.3.41-56 David Suchet on this speech: “…note how [this] soliloquy suddenly sounds more like direct speech to the audience, and note as well the obvious humour and warmth of 'Now, my sick fool Roderigo, / Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong side out', etc. Now Iago is positive and suddenly everything he wants works.” (1988: 189)

  17. Suchet again: “Shakespeare, with a stroke of genius, gives Iago a chance to play the audience as he plays with other characters. Here is a soliloquy unlike any of the others. The audience is charmed and won over by his direct address. What wonderful effrontery to be able to turn to his audience and ask 'And what's he then that says I play the villain?' The speech becomes Machiavellian towards the end, but in this soliloquy there are no doubts, no anguish. Iago is happy, almost for the first time in the play, and totally confident.” (1988: 189-90) 2.3.355-61 2.3.310-36

  18. Words as poison “I'll pour this pestilence into his ear…” (2.3.330) 3.3.325-37

  19. How does Iago speak to us? • James Earl Jones: • “Iago needs to soliloquize – to leave us alone and do his job. The director needs to be quite clear that a soliloquy is not a wink at the audience, but a character’s conversation with his own psyche, his own conscience or godhead.” (2003: 108) • 19th-century actor Edwin Booth: • “Do not smile, or sneer, or glower, — try to impress even the audience with your sincerity. 'Tis better, however, always to ignore the audience; if you can forget that you are a 'shew' you will be natural. The more sincere your manner, the more devilish your deceit. … Even when alone, there is little need to remove the mask entirely. Shakespeare spares you that trouble.” (Pechter 2012: 57)

  20. Iago’s motives • Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously complained of Iago’s “motiveless malignancy” (Wain 1994: 53). • A. C. Bradley had a different view: “Certainly he assigns motives enough; the difficulty is that he assigns so many.” (1905: 225) • Possible motives given to us include: • Resentment at being passed over for promotion • Racism • Sexual jealousy • Envy • But do any of these make sense? Iago does not stop his plan when he is made a lieutenant; he is racist only in order to exploit the racism of other characters; it’s far from clear that Emilia and Othello actually had an affair…

  21. Iago’s motives • Richard McCabe on Iago’s first soliloquy: • “…[here] we have our first encounter with Iago without his mask, and get nearer to the heart of his grievance. After explaining his interest in Roderigo, which at this stage is purely financial, he then startles us with the abruptness of 'I hate the Moor' (I.iii.380). The use of the conjunction 'and' that follows is brilliantly effective: Iago hates Othello and here is an active reason, indicating that his prejudice against Othello was prior to, and independent of, any motive.” (2003: 195-6)

  22. [Clip from RSC production, 52.30] • David Suchet on this speech: • “[it is here that] Shakespeare gives Iago the most difficult and complex soliloquy that I have ever encountered. … I noticed how, in spite of enduring him not, he praises Othello's character, and hardly dares to think of the happy couple together. Then comes the very enigmatic 'Now I do love her too.' Does he? No, of course not! Why not? Well, maybe he does? Does he?” (1988: 187-8) • Suchetnotes Iago’s “non sequitur leap of jealousy” in the line about fearing Cassio (1988: 188). 2.1.273-99

  23. Iago’s motives • Suchet: • “So a most confused soliloquy – almost an admission of all the problems of love and jealousy and confusion that have driven him to a madness that won't let go. Iago has to do something now. The pain is too great to cope with.” (1988: 188-9) • McCabe: • “[the] soliloquy also shows the strongest evidence in the play of Iago's essential motivation… This is a man devoured by sexual jealousy to the point of physical pain.” (2003: 198)

  24. Is Iago in control? • James Earl Jones: • “Early on, Iago seems to become the stage manager of the play. Actually, he sets events in motion and lucks out: everything falls into his lap. The resulting intrigue and duplicity give rise to tragedy; but Iago is not in control of events: he does not have everything in the bag. … I think Iago is more desperate than is usually recognized.” (2003: 26-7) • Jones on “’Tishere, but yet confused” (2.1.98): • “In other words, Iago’s plan is not all laid out, and the result is not a foregone conclusion.” (2003: 35-6)

  25. Is Iago in control? • Suchet on Iago’s first soliloquy: • “This soliloquy is easy to understand and seemingly at first glance easy to play. Here we have a laid-back villain setting out his plan of destruction - yes? - No! I noted the 'lunges' of thought and turns on a sixpence. The words 'I hate the Moor' start in the middle of a line! Not much time for a considered pause, then, after 'sport and profit'. … finally Iago has to admit that the plan is only 'engendered' and that 'Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light' (lines 403-4). Hardly the laid-back smiling villain laying down a very sure and clear plan of action.” (1988: 185-6)

  26. Is Iago in control? • Minor differences between the Folio and Quarto can have implications for this question… • Note Iago’s last words direct to the audience: • “This is the night / That either makes me or fordoes me quite.” (5.1.130-1) 1622 Quarto: 1623 Folio:

  27. Hugh Quarshie as Othello and Lucian Msamati as Iago, 2015

  28. Direct address in the second half of Othello • The pattern of direct address in the play dramatically changes after the half-way point: prior to 3.3, only Iago speaks directly to the audience, but afterwards…

  29. Othello, 3.3.247-8 and 62-83

  30. Emilia, 3.3.294-303

  31. Othello, 4.2.21-4 1622 Quarto: 1623 Folio: Desdemona, 4.2.110-12

  32. Roderigo and Iago, 5.1.8-22

  33. Othello, 5.2.1-22

  34. Othello, 5.2.100-10

  35. Iago’s last words • Martin L. Wine: “Shakespeare’s method of characterisation in Othello is such that we can never fully understand anyone in the play.” (1984: 19) OTHELLO. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devilWhy he hath thus ensnared my soul and body? IAGO. Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:From this time forth I never will speak word. (5.2)

  36. References • Bradley, A. C. (1905) Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, London: Macmillan. • Escolme, Bridget (2005) Talking to the Audience: Shakespeare, Performance, Self, London & New York: Routledge. • Jones, James Earl (2003) Actors on Shakespeare: Othello, London: Faber and Faber. • McCabe, Richard (2003) 'Iago' in Robert Smallwood [ed.] Players of Shakespeare 5, Cambridge: C. U. P., pp. 192-211. • McKellen, Ian (2003) 'Othello', http://www.mckellen.com/stage/othello/ (accessed 24 January 2017). • Pechter, Edward (2012) Othello and Interpretive Traditions, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. • Suchet, David (1988) 'Iago' in Russell Jackson & Robert Smallwood [eds] Players of Shakespeare 2, Cambridge: C. U. P., pp. 179-99. • Walker, Eamonn (2014) 'Othello in Love', in Susannah Carson [ed.] Shakespeare and Me, London: Oneworld, pp. 141-60. • Wine, Martin L. (1984) Othello: Text & Performance, Basingstoke: Macmillan.

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