reprinted from Shakespeare Survey.Nostbakken, Faith, Understanding Othello (2000). Useful student casebook covering drama, context, and performance.Orlin, Lena Cowen, ed., Othello, New Casebook Series (2004). Useful selection of recent critical essays.Pechter, Edward, Othello and the Interpretive Traditions (1999). Overview of critical approaches.Potter, Nicholas, ed., William Shakespeare: Othello (2000). Columbia Critical Guides series. Useful, detailed account of critical history.Spivack, Bernard, Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil (1958). Relates the role of Iago to the figure of Vice in medieval morality plays.Vaughan, Virginia Mason, Othello: A Contextual History (1994). Excellent on play’s Jacobean contexts in Part I; Part II considers a range of historical performances.Vaughan, Virginia Mason, and Kent Cartwright, eds., Othello: New Perspectives (1991). Useful collection of varied essays on text, performance, and contemporary critical approaches.Wain, John, ed., Shakespeare: Othello: A Casebook (1971, revised 1994). Useful collection including important early essays.
THE PLAY IN PERFORMANCECook, Judith, Women in Shakespeare (1980). Useful chapter on tragic heroines includes Desdemona. ———, Shakespeare’s Players (1983). Chapter on “jealousy” includes discussion of Othello and Iago.Hankey, Julie, ed., Othello: William Shakespeare, Plays in Performance series (2005). Excellent detailed stage history with annotated play text.Jackson, Russell, and Robert Smallwood, eds., Players of Shakespeare 2 (1988). Includes Ben Kingsley on Othello and David Suchet on Iago.Parsons, Keith, and Pamela Mason, Shakespeare in Performance (1995). Useful overview of stage history and important historical productions.Potter, Lois, Othello, Shakespeare in Performance (2002). Sophisticated account of stage history, including film versions.Rosenberg, Marvin, The Masks of Othello (1961). Fascinating and detailed chronological account of the play in performance.Sales, Roger, ed., “Bob Peck on Playing Iago,” Shakespeare in Perspective, Volume Two (1985).Smallwood, Robert, ed., Players of Shakespeare 5 (2003). Includes Richard McCabe on playing Iago.Tynan, Kenneth, ed., Othello, by William Shakespeare: The National Theatre Production (1966). Detailed account of John Dexter’s 1964 National Theatre production with Laurence Olivier as Othello.Vaughan, Virginia Mason, Othello: A Contextual History (1994). Part II considers a range of historical performances.Vaughan, Virginia Mason, and Kent Cartwright, eds., Othello: New Perspectives (1991). Useful collection of varied essays on text, performance, and contemporary critical approaches.Wine, Martin, Othello: Text and Performance (1984). Basic overview of text with detailed account of important twentieth-century performances in Part 2.
AVAILABLE ON DVDOthello directed by Dmitri Buchowetzki (1922, DVD 2001). Interesting German silent film version with contrasting performance styles of Emil Jannings (Othello) and Werner Krauss (Iago).A Double Life directed by George Cukor (1947, DVD 2003). Adaptation updated to postwar New York with Ronald Colman, winner of Best Actor award for performance; Signe Hasso, Edmund O’Brien, Shelly Winters.Othello directed by Orson Welles (1952, DVD 1999). Bold, award-winning version with Welles himself as Othello, Micheal MacLiammoir as Iago, and Susan Cloutier as Desdemona, with typically adventurous cinematography. Welles made a film about the production, Filming Othello (1978).Othello directed by Sergei Yutkevich (1955, VHS 1992). Stunning Russian version—cast includes Sergei Bondarchuk (Othello), Irina Skobtseva (Desdemona), and Andrei Popov (Iago). Yutkevich won Best Director award at Cannes in 1956.All Night Long directed by Michael Relph, Basil Deardon (1961, DVD 2004). Adaptation described as “a wildly enjoyable 1961 British jazz version…that even considerately throws in that happy ending that Shakespeare forgot.”Othello directed by Stuart Burge (1965, DVD 2003). Film of John Dexter’s National Theatre production starring Laurence Olivier (Othello), Maggie Smith (Desdemona), Frank Finlay (Iago), and Joyce Redman (Emilia). Powerful: divided views about Olivier’s performance.Othello directed by Franklin Melton (1981, DVD 2001). Film of traditional stage version with Ron Moody (Iago), Jenny Agutter (Desdemona), and William Marshall (Othello).Otello directed by Franco Zeffirelli (1986, DVD 2005). Based on Giuseppe Verdi’s opera with Pl?cido Domingo as Otello, Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona, and Justino Diaz as Jago—described as “powerful and full-blooded.”Othello directed by Janet Suzman (1988, DVD 2006). Filmed version of celebrated South African production staged at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, with John Kani, Richard Haines, and Joanna Weinberg.Othello directed by Trevor Nunn (1990, DVD 2003). Film of RSC production with Ian McKellen (Iago), Imogen Stubbs (Desdemona), Willard White (Othello), and Zoe Wanamaker (Emilia).Shakespeare: The Animated Tales directed by Aida Ziablikova (1992, DVD 2005). Othello voiced by Alec McCowan, Michael Kitchen, Suzanne Burden; inventive 27-minute animated British/Russian coproduction with script by Leon Garfield, using a combination of Shakespeare’s text and narration.Othello directed by Oliver Parker (1995, DVD 2000). Overtly sexual production with Laurence Fishburne (Othello), Kenneth Branagh (Iago), and Irene Jacob (Desdemona); Branagh dominates as Iago.“O” directed by Tim Blake Nelson (2000, DVD 2002). A “clever and serious” adaptation set in an American high school with Mekhi Phifer and Julia Stiles.Othello directed by Geoffrey Sax (2001, DVD 2002). Updated TV version by Andrew Davies with John Othello as the first black commissioner of the Metropolitan Police with fine performances from Eamonn Walker (John Othello), Keeley Hawes (Dessie), and Christopher Eccleston (Ben Jago).
REFERENCES1. Thomas Baldwin, The Organization and Personnel of the Shakespearean Company (1961), p. 248.2. Henry Jackson, a member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in a letter originally in Latin dated September 1610 (Ms ccc 304ff 83v and 84r), in Eyewitnesses of Shakespeare: First Hand Accounts of Performances 1590–1890, ed. Gamini Salgado (1975), p. 30.3. Marvin Rosenberg, The Masks of Othello: The Search for the Identity of Othello, Iago, and Desdemona by Three Centuries of Actors and Critics (1961), pp. 20–7.4. Samuel Pepys, Diary entry, 11 October 1660.5. Colley Cibber, An Apology for His Life (1914), p. 69.6. Richard Steele, The Tatler, No. 167, 2 May 1710.7. Cibber, Apology, p. 77.8. Theophilus Cibber, “Barton Booth,” in The Lives and Characters of the Most Eminent Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and Ireland (1753), pp. 45– 50.9. Grub Street Journal, 31 October 1734.10. Henry Aston in James Boaden (ed.), The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, with the Most Celebrated Persons of His Time, Volume I (1831–32), p. 30.11. Samuel Foote, A Treatise on the Passions, so Far as They Regard the Stage: With a Critical Enquiry into the Theatrical Merit of Mr. G—k, Mr. Q—n, and Mr. B—y the First Considered in the Part of Lear, the Two Last Opposed in Othello (1976), pp. 33–4.12. Arthur Murphy, The Life of David Garrick, Esq (1801), p. 70.13. Julie Hankey (ed.), Shakespeare in Production: Othello (2005), p. 24.14. Thomas Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick (1780), Volume II (1972), p. 240.15. William Cooke, Memoirs of Charles Macklin: Comedian (1804), p. 158.16. Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Volume II, p. 241.17. William Hazlitt, The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, ed. P. P. Howe after the edition of A. R. Waller and Arnold Glover, Volume 5, Lectures on the English Poets and a View of the English Stage (1930), p. 304.18. James Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, Esq: Including a History of the Stage from the Time of Garrick to the Present Period, Volume I (1825), p. 256.19. London Magazine, March 1785.20. Hankey, Othello, p. 35.21. William Hazlitt, “Mr Kean’s Iago,” in his A View of the English Stage; or, a Series of Dramatic Criticisms, edited by W. Spencer Jackson (1906), pp. 19–20.22. Leigh Hunt, review of Othello in The Examiner, No. 562, October 5, 1818, p. 632.23. Henry Crabb Robinson, diary entry for 19 May 1814, in The London Theatre, 1811–1866: Selections from the Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson, ed. Eluned Brown (1966), pp. 57–8.24. John Forster Kirk, “Shakespeare’s Tragedies,” quoted in Hankey, Othello, p. 46.25. William Rounesville Alger, “Othello,” in his Life of Edwin Forrest: The American Tragedian, Volume II (1877), pp. 768–80.26. Henry James, “Tommaso Salvini: In Boston (1883),” in The Scenic Art: Notes on Acting & the Drama, 1872–1901, ed. Allan Wade (1948), pp. 168–85.27. Quoted in Hankey,
