Othello

Othello. First performed in America in 1751 by Robert Upton, this tragedy was, along with Hamlet and Richard III, one of the three Shakespearean plays most favored by 19th‐century classic American tragedians. One special reason for the favor seems to have been that they could alternate in the roles of Iago and Othello. For many early 19th‐century Americans, Edmund Kean's dignified but volatile Moor served as an exemplar, challenged only by the more ferocious, stentorian Moor of Edwin Forrest. Both Junius Brutus Booth and Edwin Booth met marked success in either role, with the younger actor's interpretations marked by subtleties apparently foreign to his father. Among the other notable interpreters of one or both parts were Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, G. F. Cooke (whose Iago won praise for not being too theatrically villainous), A. A. Addams, James Fennell, E. L. Davenport, Lawrence Barrett, James Murdoch, John McCullough, and Robert Mantell. Most, but not all of these actors, performed the Moor in black or swarthy make‐up. A notable Moor was Tommaso Salvini, who emphasized the figure's Mediterranean emotionalism. In modern times Walter Huston suffered a major failure when he essayed the Moor, but Alfred Drake, better known for starring in musicals, won high praise when he offered an insinuating but carefully controlled Iago at the American Shakespearean Festival. However, the most memorable modern revivals have both offered African Americans as the Moor. In 1943 Paul Robeson gave a richly humane performance to the Iago of José Ferrer and the notable Desdemona of Uta Hagen, while a 1982 production offered James Earl Jones as Othello and Christopher Plummer as Iago. The American who has played Othello the most is Earle Hyman, with hundreds of performances around the world.