Editing Othello (section)

==== 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>