Editing Othello (section)

=== 19th century ===

Paul Robeson's iconic performance (see 20th Century, below) was not the first professional performance of the title role by a black actor: the first known is [[James Hewlett (actor)|James Hewlett]] at the [[African Grove|African Grove Theatre]], New York, in 1822.{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|pp=77-78}} And Hewlett's protégé [[Ira Aldridge]] (billed as "The African [[Quintus Roscius Gallus|Roscius]]") played many Shakespearean roles across Europe for forty years, including Othello at the [[Royalty Theatre]], London, in 1825.{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|pp=78-79}}

There are stories of extravagant audience reactions to the play. One of the most extreme is related by French novelist [[Stendhal]] who reports that at the [[Holliday Street Theater|Baltimore Theatre]] in 1822 a soldier interrupted the performance just before Desdemona's murder, shouting "It will never be said that in my presence a confounded Negro has killed a white woman!" The soldier fired his gun, breaking the arm of the actor playing Othello.{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=8}}

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Othello was regarded as the most demanding of Shakespeare's roles: it is considered a part of theatre legend that [[Edmund Kean]] collapsed while playing the role, and died two months after.<ref>Gillies, John "Stanislavski, ''Othello'', and the Motives of Eloquence" in Hodgson, Barbara and Worthen, W. B. (eds.) "A Companion to Shakespeare and Performance", Blackwell Publishing Limited 2008, pp.&nbsp;267–284, at p.&nbsp;267.</ref> [[Leigh Hunt]] saw Kean's Othello in 1819, describing his performance in ''The Examiner'' as "the masterpiece of the living stage".<ref>Welles, 2000, pp.&nbsp;55–57.</ref> Before Kean, the leading exponent of the role had been [[John Philip Kemble]] who played a "neoclassical hero". In contrast, Kean presented Othello as a man of romantic temperament, and uncontrollable passion.<ref>Moody, Jane "Romantic Shakespeare" in Welles, Stanley and Stanton, Sarah (eds.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage", Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp.&nbsp;37–57, at p.&nbsp;53.</ref> It was also Kean who initiated the so-called "Bronze Age of Othello" by insisting that "it was a gross error to make Othello either a negro or a black"<ref>Kean's biographer F. W. Hawkins in {{harvnb|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|p=32}}</ref> and thereby commencing a stage tradition of using lighter makeup rather than blackface.{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|pp=31-32;71-72}} An advantage of this change was that the actor's facial expressions could be more clearly seen.{{sfn|Bate|Rasmussen|2009|p=152}}

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.{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=102}} 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 assassination" but Kemble, a passionate [[Feminism|feminist]] and [[Abolitionism|abolitionist]], decided "I shall make a desperate fight for it, for I feel horribly at the idea of being murdered in my bed."<ref>[[Fanny Kemble]]'s 1882 ''Records of Later Life'' in {{harvnb|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|p=93}}</ref>

In 1848, ''Othello'' was produced by Barry Lewis at the [[Sans Souci Theatre (Calcutta)|Sans Souci Theatre]] in Calcutta. The casting of the white "Mrs. Anderson" opposite the dark-skinned Indian Baishnav Charan Auddy led to controversy, to polarized reviews, and to a fiasco on the opening night when half of the cast, military men, were prohibited from leaving barracks by order of the Brigadier of [[Dum Dum]].<ref>Gillies, Minami, Li and Trivedi, 2002, pp.273-274.</ref>

For [[Tommaso Salvini]] and [[Edwin Booth]] the role of Othello was a career-length project.<ref>Gillies, p.&nbsp;267.</ref> Salvini always played the role in Italian, even when acting alongside a company performing in English.<ref>Wells, Stanley (ed.) "Oxford Shakespeare Topics: Shakespeare in the Theatre{{snd}} An Anthology of Criticism", Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.&nbsp;112–113.</ref> His conception of the role was of a barbarian with savage and passionate instincts concealed by a thick veneer of civilisation.<ref>Joseph Knight's 1875 "Theatrical Notes" cited in Welles, 2000, p.&nbsp;113.</ref> [[Konstantin Stanislavski]] admired, and was greatly influenced by, Salvini's Othello, which he saw in 1882. In ''[[My Life in Art]]'', Stanislavski recalls Salvini's scene before the Senate, saying that the actor "grasped all of us in his palm, and held us there as if we were ants or flies".<ref>Gillies, 2008, pp.&nbsp;269–270 (in turn citing the 1982 reprint of ''[[My Life in Art]]'', p.&nbsp;266).</ref> Booth, in complete contrast, played Othello as a restrained gentleman. When [[Ellen Terry]] played Desdemona she commented on how much Booth's style helped her: "It is difficult to preserve the simple, heroic blindness of Desdemona to the fact that her lord mistrusts her, if her lord is raving and stamping under her nose. Booth was gentle with Desdemona."<ref>[[Ellen Terry]]'s  ''The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections'' in {{harvnb|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|p=75-77}}</ref>

Booth was also an acclaimed Iago, and his advice to actors of the role was: "to portray Iago properly you must seem to be what all the characters think and say you are, not what the spectators know you to be; try to win even ''them'' by your sincerity. Don't ''act'' the villain."<ref>Edwin Booth, cited by McAlindon, 2005, p.lxix.</ref>

Stanislavski himself first played Othello in 1896. He was dissatisfied with his own performance, later recalling "I was able to reach nothing more than insane strain, spiritual and physical impotence, and the squeezing of tragic emotion out of myself."<ref>Gillies, 2008, p.&nbsp;271 (in turn citing the 1982 reprint of ''[[My Life in Art]]'').</ref>