Editing Othello (section)

==Screen==
''Othello'' has influenced many film makers, and often the results are adaptations, rather than performances of Shakespeare's text. The UK's ''[[BFI National Archive|National Film and Television Archive]]'' holds over 25 20th-Century films containing performances, adaptations or extracts from ''Othello'' including [[Anson Dyer]]'s 1920 animated ''Othello'', 1921's ''[[Carnival (1921 film)|Carnival]]'' and [[Carnival (1931 film)|its 1932 remake]], the 1922 German film ''[[Othello (1922 film)|Othello]]'', the 1936 ''[[Men Are Not Gods]]'', 1941's ''[[East of Piccadilly]]'', [[George Cukor]]'s 1947 ''[[A Double Life (1947 film)|A Double Life]]'', [[Orson Welles]]' ''[[Othello (1951 film)|Othello]]'', [[Sergei Yutkevich]]'s Russian language ''[[Othello (1955 film)|Othello]]'' discussed below, two productions for [[BBC Television]] (including [[Jonathan Miller]]'s for the [[BBC Television Shakespeare]] series, discussed below), [[Basil Dearden]]'s ''[[All Night Long (1962 film)|All Night Long]]'', a 1988 South African TV screening of [[Janet Suzman]]'s ''Othello'', a film of [[Trevor Nunn]]'s [[Royal Shakespeare Company|RSC]] production with [[Willard White]] and [[Ian McKellen]] in the central roles, and ''[[True Identity]]''—a crime caper in which [[Lenny Henry]]'s character Miles lands the role of understudy to [[James Earl Jones]] (playing himself) in a production of ''Othello''.<ref>McKernan, Luke and Terris, Olwen (eds.) "Walking Shadows: Shakespeare in the National Film and Television Archive" British Film Institute, 1994 pp.119-131.</ref> ''Carnival'', ''Men Are Not Gods'' and ''A Double Life'' all feature the plot of an actor playing the title role in Shakespeare's ''Othello'' developing murderous jealousy for their Desdemonas.<ref>Rosenthal, Daniel "100 Shakespeare Films", British Film Institute, 2007, p.163</ref><ref>Howard, Tony "Shakespeare's Cinematic Offshoots" in Jackson, Russell (ed.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film", Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp.295-313 at pp.303-306.</ref> This plot is also shared by the very first ''Othello''-influenced film: the 18-minute Danish 1911 ''Desdemona''.<ref>Brode, 2000, p.172.</ref><ref>Howard, 2000, p.295.</ref> ''All Night Long'' reframes the story in a jazz milieu.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007 pp.171-173</ref> [[Richard Eyre]]'s ''[[Stage Beauty]]'' depicts a restoration performance of the play.<ref>Burt, Richard "Backstage Pass(ing): Stage Beauty, ''Othello'' and the Make-up of Race" in Burnett, Mark Thornton and Wray, Ramona (eds.) "Screening Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century" Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2006 pp.53-71 at p.53.</ref>

The filming of [[Orson Welles]]' ''[[Othello (1951 film)|Othello]]'' was plagued by chaos. A pattern emerged where Welles would collect his cast and crew for filming, then after four or five weeks his money would run out and filming would cease: Welles would then appear in another movie, and using his acting fee would reconvene filming. Scenes in the final movie were sometimes spliced together from one actor filmed in Italy in one year, and another actor filmed in Morocco the next.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007 pp.165-166</ref> Welles uses shadows, extreme camera angles and discordant piano music to force the audience to feel Othello's disorientated view of Desdemona.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007, p.166.</ref> Cages, grilles and bars are frequent images.<ref>Tatspaugh, 2000 p.145</ref> And the text is heavily cut: Othello's first words are his speech to the Senators from Act 1 Scene 3.<ref>Tatspaugh, Patricia "The Tragedies of Love on Film" in Jackson, Russell (ed.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film" Cambridge University Press, 2000 pp.135-159 at p.144</ref><ref>Mason, Pamela "Orson Welles and Filmed Shakespeare" in Jackson, Russell (ed.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film" Cambridge University Press, 2000 pp.183-198 at pp.189-193.</ref> The film was critically panned on its 1955 release (headlines included "Mr Welles Murders Shakespeare in the Dark" and "The Boor of Venice") but was acclaimed as a classic upon its re-release in a restored version in 1992.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007 p.167.</ref>

[[Sergei Yutkevich]]'s Russian film, with a screenplay by [[Boris Pasternak]], was an attempt to make Shakespeare accessible to "the working man".<ref name="auto4">Brode, 2000, p.159.</ref> Yutkevitch had begun his career as a painter and then as a set designer, and his film was widely praised for its pictorial beauty.<ref name="auto4"/> The director saw his film as an opposite of Welles': where Welles began his film with a sequence from the end of the story, highlighting fate, Yutkevitch began with his Othello's back-story, thereby highlighting his characters' free will.<ref>Brode, 2000, p.160</ref>

[[Laurence Olivier]] said that the role of Othello demanded "enormously big"<ref>Laurence Olivier quoted by Rosenthal, 2007, p.174</ref> acting, and he incorporated what [[The Spectator]] described as his "outsize, elaborate, overwhelming"<ref>The Spectator quoted by Rosenthal, 2007, p.174</ref> performance into [[Othello (1965 British film)|the film]] of his [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]] production. The effect to modern audiences is (in the words of Daniel Rosenthal) "laughably over-the-top"<ref>Rosenthal, 2007, p.</ref>—in keeping with its nature as a filmed stage performance, rather than a performance designed for the screen. The film was a financial success, and earned Oscar nominations for each of Olivier as Othello, [[Maggie Smith]] as Desdemona, [[Frank Finlay]] as Iago and [[Joyce Redman]] as Emilia.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007 pp.174-175.</ref> Subsequent critics have been less sympathetic to Olivier's performance than his contemporary audience had been, tending to read it as racist.<ref>Gillies, 2008, p.268.</ref> As Barbara Hodgdon expresses it: "Oliver's Othello confirms an absolute fidelity to white stereotypes of blackness."<ref>Barbara Hodgdon, quoted in Tatspaugh, 2000, p.151.</ref>

The last of the screen versions to portray Othello in blackface was [[Jonathan Miller]]'s for the [[BBC Television Shakespeare]] series, with [[Anthony Hopkins]] in the title role. Miller is said to have commented that "the play is about jealousy, not race."<ref>Greenhall, Susanne and Shaughnessy, Robert "Our Shakespeares: British Television and the Strains of Multiculturalism" in Burnett, Mark Thornton and Wray, Ramona (eds.) "Screening Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century" Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2006 pp.90-112 at p.94.</ref> The TV film of [[Willard White]]'s performance as ''Othello'' (discussed under 20th Century performances above) has been described by Carol Chillington Rutter as "The one [screen] ''Othello'' where the women's stories get fully told",<ref>Chillington Rutter, Carol "Looking at Shakespeare's Women on Film" in Jackson, Russell (ed.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film" Cambridge University Press, 2000 pp.141-260 at p.257.</ref> particularly praising the dynamic between [[Imogen Stubbs]]' Desdemona and [[Zoë Wanamaker]]'s Emilia.<ref>Chillington Rutter, 2000, p.257.</ref>

[[Oliver Parker]]'s 1995 ''[[Othello (1995 film)|Othello]]'' was trailed as an "erotic thriller", including a ritualized love scene between Othello and Desdemona, and, most memorably, Othello's jealous fantasies of encounters between Desdemona and Cassio.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007, p.178.</ref><ref>Daileader, Celia B. "Nude Shakespeare in Film and Nineties Popular Feminism" in Alexander, Catherine M. S. and Wells, Stanley "Shakespeare and Sexuality" Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp.183-200 at pp.190-192.</ref> Swiss actress [[Irène Jacob]] as Desdemona struggled with the verse, as did [[Laurence Fishburne]], more experienced in expletive-ridden thriller roles, as Othello.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007, pp.178-179.</ref> Iago was [[Kenneth Branagh]] in his first outing as a screen villain.<ref name="auto15">Rosenthal, 2007, p.179.</ref> The overall effect was to create, in Douglas Brode's words "the tragedy of Iago"—a performance in which Iago's dominance is such that Othello is a foil to him, not the other way around.<ref>Brode, Douglas "Shakespeare in the Movies - From the Silent Era to Today" Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.167–168.</ref> The film was described as a "fair stab at turning the Bard into a decent night at the multiplex"<ref>The Times, quoted by Rosenthal, 2007 p.179.</ref> but failed to achieve success at the box office.<ref name="auto15"/>

Other adaptations of Shakespeare's story to be filmed include [[Franco Zeffirelli]]'s [[Otello (1986 film)|1986 film]] of [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]]'s ''[[Otello]]''<ref>Rosenthal, 2007, pp.176-177</ref> and the 1956 ''[[Jubal (film)|Jubal]]'' which resets the story as a Western, centered on the Cassio character.<ref>Brode, 2000, p.173.</ref> The play was abridged to 30 minutes by [[Leon Garfield]], and produced with cel animation for the TV series ''[[Shakespeare: The Animated Tales]]''.<ref>Holland, 2007, p.43.</ref> [[Tim Blake Nelson]]'s basketball-themed teen drama ''[[O (2001 film)|O]]'' reset the story at an elite boarding school. The similarity of the film's ending to the [[Columbine High School massacre|Columbine massacre]], which happened while the film was being edited, delayed its release for over two years, until August 2001.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007, pp.180-181.</ref> A British TV adaptation by [[Andrew Davies (writer)|Andrew Davies]], screened in 2001, re-set the story among senior officers of the [[Metropolitan Police]].<ref>Rosenthal, 2007, pp.182-183.</ref> And the first decade of the 21st-Century saw two non-English language film adaptations: [[Alexander Abela]]'s French ''[[Souli (film)|Souli]]'' set the story in a modern-day Madagascan fishing village, and [[Vishal Bhardwaj]]'s Hindi ''[[Omkara (2006 film)|Omkara]]'' amidst political violence in modern Uttar Pradesh.<ref>Rosenthal, 2007, pp.184-185 & 188-191.</ref> The 1997 Malayalam film ''[[Kaliyattam]]'' is an adaptation set against the backdrop of [[Theyyam]] artform of Kerala.<ref>{{cite book |last=Loomba |first=Ania |chapter=Shakespeare and the Possibilities of Postcolonial Performance |year=2005 |title=A Companion to Shakespeare and Performance |pages=121–137 |editor-last=Hodgdon |editor-first=Barbara |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470996706.ch7 |access-date=2024-10-06 |place=Oxford, UK |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]]|doi=10.1002/9780470996706.ch7 |isbn=978-0-470-99670-6 |editor2-last=Worthen |editor2-first=W. B.}}</ref>The 2023 Malayalam film ''Iru'' is an adaptation set against a campus political love story in Kerala.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2020-02-15 |title=Kerala Christian priest makes Othello-inspired movie on campus love, caste|url=https://www.theweek.in/news/entertainment/2020/02/15/kerala-christian-priest-makes-othello-inspired-movie-campus-love.html |access-date=2025-04-20 |work=The Week|issn=0971-8257}}</ref>  The 2024 Bengali film ''[[Athhoi]]'' is an adaptation set against a fictional town of Vinsura in West Bengal.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2024-06-06 |title=The timeless tale of trust, loyalty and betrayal: Athhoi unveils its trailer |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bengali/movies/news/the-timeless-tale-of-trust-loyalty-and-betrayal-athhoi-unveils-its-trailer/photostory/110770815.cms |access-date=2024-11-08 |work=The Times of India |issn=0971-8257}}</ref> 

=== Other media ===

==== Stage adaptations ====
Adaptations of—or borrowings from—Shakespeare's ''Othello'' began shortly after it first appeared, including [[Thomas Middleton|Middleton]] & [[William Rowley|Rowley]]'s 1622 ''[[The Changeling (play)|The Changeling]]'', [[John Ford (dramatist)|John Ford]]'s 1632 ''[[Love's Sacrifice]]'', [[Thomas Porter (dramatist)|Thomas Porter]]'s 1662 ''[[The Villain (play)|The Villain]]'' and [[Henry Nevil Payne]]'s 1673 ''[[The Fatal Jealousy]]''.{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=14}} [[Edward Young]]'s 1721 play ''[[The Revenge (Young play)|The Revenge]]'' reversed the racial roles, featuring the "swagger part" of a black villain called Zanga whose victim was a white man.{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=15}}

[[Voltaire]]'s 1732 French play [[Zaïre (play)|''Zaïre'']] was a "neoclassical refurbishment" of Shakespeare's "barbarous" work.{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=14}} And across continental Europe through most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the play was better known than Shakespeare's in [[Jean-François Ducis]]' adaptation and its subsequent translations, in which a heroine renamed Hédelmone is stabbed to death by Othello.<ref>Hoenselaars, Ton "Shakespeare and Translation" in Wells, Stanley and Orlin, Lena Cowen "Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide", Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 645-657 at p.648.</ref>

Part of the explosion of the [[Romanticism|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''.<ref>Brown, 1995, p.&nbsp;309.</ref>

After the [[Stuart Restoration|Restoration]], London Theatres other than the [[Patent theatre|patent companies]] got around the illegality of performing Shakespeare by allusion and parody, such as Charles Westmacott's ''Othello The Moor of Fleet Street'' at the [[Adelphi Theatre|Adelphi]] in 1833.<ref>Moody, 2002, p.&nbsp;39.</ref>

In the 19th-Century United States, ''Othello'' was often used in parody, sometimes allied with [[minstrel show]]s: with the contrast between Shakespearean verse and African-American dialect a source of racist humour.<ref>Lanier, Douglas "Oxford Shakespeare Topics: Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture", Oxford University Press, 2002, p.&nbsp;38.</ref> Indeed, racist parodies were common in the aftermath of the abolition of the slave trade in the UK and, later, in the US: for example Maurice Dowling's 1834 ''Othello Travestie'', George W H Griffin's 1870 ''Othello (Ethiopian Burlesque)'', the anonymous ''Desdemonum An Ethiopian Burlesque'' of 1874 and the anonymous ''Dar's de Money (Othello Burlesque)'' of 1880.{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=42}}{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|pp=102-105}}

The [[Black Arts Movement]] appropriated ''Othello'' in an entirely different vein. [[Amiri Baraka]]'s twinned 1964 plays ''[[Dutchman (play)|Dutchman]]'' and ''Slave'' are said to "represent the ultimate African American revision of ''Othello''",<ref>James Andreas' "''Othello's'' African American Progeny" in {{harvnb|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|p=106}}</ref> especially in ''Dutchman's'' murder of Clay, a black man, by Lulu, a white woman.{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|p=106}}

The ''Othello'' story became the rock opera ''[[Catch My Soul (musical)|Catch My Soul]]'' in 1968, depicting Othello as a charismatic religious cult leader, Desdemona as a naive convert, and Iago as a malcontent cult member who thinks himself to be Satan.<ref>Sanders, 2007, pp.&nbsp;73–74.</ref><ref>Lanier, 2002, p.&nbsp;71.</ref> In Murray Carlin's 1969 ''Not Now Sweet Desdemona'' the protagonist says of Shakespeare's play that it was "the first play of the Age of Imperialism ... ''Othello'' is about colour and nothing but colour."{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=1}} [[Charles Marowitz]]'s 1974 ''An Othello'' reworked the play in the context of the [[Black power|Black Power]] movement.{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=12}} [[C. Bernard Jackson]]'s 1979 ''Iago'' made Iago himself a Moor and a victim of racism.{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|p=107}} And [[Caleen Sinnette Jennings]]' 1999 ''Casting Othello'' is a metadrama about a performance of Shakespeare's play, and the racial tensions it evokes.{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|p=108}}

[[Roysten Abel]]'s ''Othello - A Play in Black and White'' is set among a group of Indian actors rehearsing a [[Kathakali]] version of ''Othello'' whose own story begins to mirror the play's plot: with Iago's seduction of Othello played as a [[guru]]-disciple relationship.<ref>Gillies, Minami, Li and Trivedi, 2002, pp.278-280.</ref>

Among [[Feminism|feminist]] appropriations of the ''Othello'' story, [[Paula Vogel]]'s 1994 ''Desdemona, A Play about a Handkerchief'' sets the story in a kitchen in Cyprus, where only Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca appear.{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|pp=108-109}} In [[Djanet Sears]]' 1998 ''Harlem Duet'', Othello's lover challenges his subservient passion: "...why you trying to please her? ... I'm so tired of pleasing White folks."{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=13}} And [[Toni Morrison]] and [[Rokia Traoré]]'s 2012 ''[[Desdemona (play)|Desdemona]]'' sets its story in a timeless afterlife of the characters, in which Othello and Desdemona have leisure to talk through all facets of their relationship, and in which Desdemona is reunited with her former maid Barbary, whose actual name is Sa'ran.{{sfn|Honigmann|Thompson|2016|pp=111-113}}

''Othello'' is parodied in the form of a rap song in the stage show ''[[The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)]]''.<ref>Holland, Peter "Shakespeare Abbreviated" in Shaughnessy, Robert (ed.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture", Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp.&nbsp;26–45, at p.&nbsp;41.</ref> In 2012, the Q Brothers debuted ''Othello: The Remix'', a 90-minute hip-hop version of ''Othello'' that was part of the [[Globe to Globe Festival]] and World Shakespeare Festival.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Yates |first1=Kieran |title=Othello - review |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/may/07/othello-review |website=The Guardian |date=7 May 2012 |access-date=7 May 2012}}</ref> It was one of the few sold-out shows during the festival and went on to have several successful international tours.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Della Gatta |first1=Carla |title=Shakespeare, Race, and 'Other' Englishes: The Q Brothers's Othello: The Remix |journal=Shakespeare Survey |date=2018 |volume=71 |pages=74–87 |doi=10.1017/9781108557177.011|isbn=978-1-108-55717-7 }}</ref>

==== Audio ====

One of the first full-length plays to be released on vinyl was the Broadway production starring [[Paul Robeson]], [[José Ferrer]] and [[Uta Hagen]], issued in 1944.<ref>Lanier, Douglas "Shakespeare on the Record" in Hodgdon, Barbara and Worthen, W. B. (eds.) "A Companion to Shakespeare and Performance", Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2008, pp.&nbsp;415–435, at p.&nbsp;424. The stage production is discussed in the section "20th Century" above.</ref> ''Othello'' has been performed on at least twelve separate occasions on [[BBC Radio]].<ref>Greenhalgh, Susanne "Shakespeare Overheard: Performances, Adaptations, and Citations on Radio" in Shaughnessy, Robert (ed.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture", Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp.&nbsp;175–198, at p.&nbsp;186.</ref>

==== Music ====

''The Willow Song'', sung by Desdemona in Act 4 Scene 3,<ref>''Othello'', 4.3.39–56.</ref> is not an original creation of Shakespeare's, but was already a well-known ballad. As such it has surviving arrangements from both before and after Shakespeare's time.<ref>Sanders, 2007, p.&nbsp;30.</ref> The version of it thought to be most authentic, because it closely matches the lyric given by Shakespeare, is known as "The Poore Soule Sate Sighing"<ref>Austern, 2006, p.451-452.</ref> and is one of the most performed pieces of early modern English music.<ref>Austern, Linda Phyllis "The Music in the Play" in {{harvnb|Neill|2008|p=445}}</ref>

The two other songs sung in the play are the drinking songs in Act 2 Scene 3.<ref>''Othello'' 2.3.65-69 and ''Othello'' 2.3.85-92.</ref> The first of these, "And Let Me The Cannikin Clink", has no surviving arrangement, although it fits to several extant popular tunes.<ref>Austern, 2006, p.446-447.</ref> The other, "King Stephen Was a Worthy Peer", is the seventh of the eight stanzas of the existing ballad "Take Thy Old Cloak About Thee".<ref>Austern, 2006, pp.447-448.</ref>

The play has been a popular source for opera. [[Gioachino Rossini|Rossini]]'s 1816 ''[[Otello (Rossini)|Otello, ossia il Moro di Venezia]]'' made Desdemona its focus, and was followed by numerous translations and adaptations, including one with a happy ending.<ref>Sanders, Julie "Shakespeare and Music{{snd}} Afterlives and Borrowings", Polity Press, 2007, p.&nbsp;103.</ref> But the most notable version, considered a masterpiece with a power equivalent to that of the play, is [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]]'s 1887 ''[[Otello]]'',<ref>Gross, John "Shakespeare's Influence" in Wells, Stanley and Orlin, Lena Cowen (Eds.) "An Oxford Guide: Shakespeare", Oxford University Press, 2003, pp.&nbsp;633–644, at p.&nbsp;642.</ref> for which [[Arrigo Boito]]'s libretto marked a return to faithfulness to the original plot, including the reappearance of the pillow as the murder weapon, rather than [[Jean-François Ducis|Ducis]]' dagger.<ref>Hoenselaars, Ton "Shakespeare and Translation" in Wells, Stanley and Orlin, Lena Cowen (eds.) "An Oxford Guide: Shakespeare". Oxford University Press, 2003, pp.&nbsp;645–657, at p.&nbsp;649.</ref>

''Othello'' was, with ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'', one of the two plays which most influenced [[Duke Ellington]] and [[Billy Strayhorn]]'s jazz suite ''[[Such Sweet Thunder]]''. Its opening track (itself titled ''Such Sweet Thunder'', a quotation from Shakespeare's ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'')<ref>''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' Act 4 Scene 1 Lines 116–117.</ref> came to stand for Othello telling his tales of travel and adventure to Desdemona, as reported in the play's first act.<ref>''Othello'', 1.3.129–170.</ref><ref>Sanders, 2007, pp.&nbsp;17–18.</ref>

Sometimes the order of the play influencing a composer is reversed, as in the appropriations of classical music by filmmakers retelling Othello's story: for example in the film ''[[O (2001 film)|O]]'', in which excerpts from Verdi's ''Otello'' are used as a theme for Odin (the Othello character) while modern [[Hip hop music|rap and hip-hop]] are more associated with the white college students around him.<ref>Sanders, 2007, p.&nbsp;154, 171–172.</ref>

[[Bob Dylan]]'s song [[Po' Boy (Bob Dylan song)|Po' Boy]] features lyrics in which Desdemona turns the tables on Othello, borrowing the idea of using poisoned wine from the final act of ''Hamlet''.<ref>Buhler, Stephen M., "Musical Shakespeares: Attending to Ophelia, Juliet, and Desdemona" in Shaughnessy, Robert (ed.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture", Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp.&nbsp;150–174, at pp.&nbsp;171–172.</ref>

==== Literature ====

[[Aphra Behn]]'s 1688 novel ''[[Oroonoko]]'', and its subsequent dramatisation by [[Thomas Southerne]], reset Othello's enslavement in the context of the then-current [[Atlantic slave trade|Atlantic triangle]].{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=15}}

In addition to his theatrical performances noted above, the play was also central to [[Konstantin Stanislavski]]'s writings, and to the development of his "[[Stanislavski's system|system]]". In particular, the part of Othello is a main subject of his book [[Creating a Role]].<ref>Gillies, p.&nbsp;272.</ref> In it, the characters of Tortzov, the director, and Kostya, the young actor – both partly autobiographical – rehearse the role of Othello in the opening act.<ref>Gillies, pp.&nbsp;277–278.</ref>

A plot-line in [[Farrukh Dhondy]]'s novel ''Black Swan'' involves the central character Lazarus, a freed slave, travelling to London in the time of Shakespeare and authoring many of the plays attributed to Shakespeare, including ''Othello'', in a production of which Lazarus plays the title character, and kills himself.<ref>Lanier, 2002, pp.&nbsp;135–136.</ref> The narrative voice of [[Caryl Phillips]] 1997 novel ''The Nature of Blood'' harangues Othello as a sexual and political sell-out.{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=12}} And in Sudanese novelist [[Tayeb Salih]]'s retelling of the ''Othello'' story, ''Season of Migration to the North'', the central character Mustafa Sa'eed, on trial for the murder of his white mistress, refuses to be judged by the standards of the play, declaring:

{{Blockquote|"Othello was a lie."{{sfn|Neill|2008|p=118}}}}