I’m getting better at getting out and doing things that aren’t music, my safe space. Last night Katherine and I went to see Othello in Bryant Park. I love their picnic event series. There are chairs on the lawn to the sides of the stage but they provide blankets for those that want to sit in the middle. That’s what I go for. This was my third event this summer, the first two were concerts. As it’s a picnic series, I picnicked, true brown bagging. I had a peanut butter on chocolate chip brioche sandwiched in a genuine brown paper bag. Somehow the bag adds to the experience. Human brains are weird, not just mine.
Katherine added even more to the experience. Being put above chocolate and peanut butter is the highest praise I can give. Well almost I could have put bacon on the sandwich and brought coffee to drink, that would be all the essential food groups. God, I want to do that now. Why haven’t I tried that? It’s closer but Katherine is still better.
The production was weak. Several of the actors, including the one that played Iago, stumbled over their lines. I’m not sure if it was trouble with the language or remembering them. I suspect both. Othello was excellent. The play was done in modern dress with occasional updated language. I’m not fond of that approach. There aren’t many Moors in the Venetian army nowadays.
I’ve always wondered if Othello was really supposed to be black. The Moors were North African and Iberian Muslims. The original ones were Berbers. North Africans are not black though darker than most Europeans and all the references to Othello being sooty and dusky might have referred to that. Shakespeare most likely never saw a Moor so who knows what his mental image was. The standard interpretation of Othello being black does give black actors a chance to play a major Shakespearean role without the audience having to suspend disbelief. Though there’s no reason it can’t work, Denzel Washington will be playing Macbeth in an upcoming film.
Sir Lawrence Olivier missed a great chance to promote racial equality in film when he made his version of Othello. I understand him wanting to undertake the roll, he also made films of Hamlet and Henry V, they were all marvelous films. But it’s jarring to see him in blackface when he could have played Iago, just as good a role, and had an African American actor play the title role. Olivier had the clout to get that produced.
Othello is problematic for me; many Shakespeare heroes are do villainous things but strangling his wife out of pride and jealously is particularly heinous. Macbeth is a regicide but I don’t find that as revolting and he’s viewed as villainous. Lear was terrible to Cordelia but spends so much of the play suffering for it. Othello just has one scene after the murder.
After the play Katherine and I went to Whole Foods, why? We could sit and talk. I had my coffee then. After theater coffee is just as good as after concert coffee. I can enjoy theater, concerts, and movies on my own, but sharing time with a friend after the show is the best way to digest it.
After spending weeks after Falcon Ridge as a hermit I’m not being a social butterfly. In the last week I spent time with Katherine, Max, Carey, Carolyn, and Allison & Joe. That’s a cornucopia of people I love. I’m going to Joe’s birthday party on Sunday so there is more to come. I see I have a full schedule next week too.
Now it’s time for breakfast; chocolate chip French toast and bacon are on the menu.
Wise Madness 