Thoughts on Othello - part five - main event

Back in my part one I mentioned the idea of an "initiating event" and said there was the related "main event" of the play. And I said there was or should be a logic of action and association with between these two ideas. Very often directors use this as a way of constructing the series of actions that become the performance. The two ideas serve as the reasoning behind it all so to speak. When faced with how or why questions about what characters do or don't do, a director will often try and see what squares best with the logic and association of these two events before making a decision.

In part one I said that I like the suggestion that the initiating event in Othello is the fact that Othello himself is such a wonderful story teller, was invited often by Brabantio to his home, told his stories there of war and adventure and travel, and Desdemona fell in love with him and he with her during that time. It makes sense to me I said because you can line up every other thing in the play behind that.

To me the main event of the play itself, is when Othello kills Desdemona. It is the most profound and meaningful action in the play, with the widest repurcussions. And of course there is a direct link, connection between that and what I take as the initiating event. So in my mind, the story, the play goes essentially from the falling in love to the killing.

For that reason, I believe the play is appropriately entitled "Othello."

While certain events as happening in the play are manipulated by Iago, Iago's own behavior and scheming is a result of what Othello is and has done. Therefore again, Othello is the catalyst, the turning point of this play. For that reason also, I believe the play is appropriately entitled "Othello."

Before our modern fixation on Iago's "psychology" great actors and producers through the ages understood Othello to be the role of a lifetime, the measure of an actor's greatness. For that reason also, I believe the play is appropriately entitled "Othello."

Shakespeare entitled it "Othello, the Moor of Venice." Therefore, I think that is the appropriate title.

Many other reasons exist too for the title - but I'll leave it at that.

It's a brilliant and complex play and tracing the logic and the action bit by bit between the initiating event and the main event of the play is a challenge, but one all actors and directors can love and appreciate.