'Dear Mister Shakespeare' - Othello (ft. Ashley Thomas) | Shakespeare Lives 

Goodluck SGS boys!!

I love this and her voice is beautiful

I still refer back to this after discovering it years ago for artistic and metaphorical inspiration. Thank you for this!!!!!!!!!!

Just saw this as an ad. It didn't come crushing into my eyesight, but it slowly and calmly started without wanting me to give attention, so I continued watching instead of just clicking it away as I usually do. It paid off. Great work. Powerful insight. It gave me exactly what I needed without me even knowing. Thank you. We are the learning ones.

Dear Mrs Boswell and whomever reads this, Reducing Othello to a play of racism is an oversimplification, and to many race is just a minor theme: -According to the director Iqbal Khan, Iagos motives arent just race, but also Othello taking his "office", which is why he could cast Msamati as Iago. If anything, the only racist ideal that Shakespeare puts forward is the malignancy of the Venetians: -According to the critic Cowhig, Othello is just a man 'whose humanity is eroded by the cunning and racism of whites'. -According to the critic AC Bradley Othello is the most noble character in the play. In my opinion, Othello is a play where race is an overtone, but its masterpiece status comes from how the concepts of race is manipulated relative to jealousy. Please write me an email if you believe it is otherwise. Regards, some random kid on the internet who is sitting his A level exam on Othello, in 11 hours.

it's very complicated play. whenever I read Othello. I always be sympathetic with him

You speak beautifuly with grace and measure I could listen for ever.

I keep coming back to watch this, I really like it.

You played this for my class at sun dance and I had to come back and watch again :))

Wow this was astonishing. All the questions i have had myself regarding this play.

Sundance, eh? Definitely deserves it.

Nicely shot, beautifully constructed, and beautifully executed. It is one view, and a valid view, one that provokes thought, but it also presumes a lot. Othello is a play adapted from a much earlier story, in which Shakespeare writes, as usual, for the theatre audience. The views and opinions of Iago, Brabantio, or indeed any of the characters are not necessarily Shakespeare's view. The beauty of Shakespeare (it is not all beautiful) is that he writes generally from the human point of view, he rarely dictates, though contemporaneous politics dictated some of his choices, (you could literally lose your head in his day) and he doesn't preach. The story/play of Othello is based, inter alia, upon two very powerful human failings, namely, racism, and jealousy. The play is not, (as is often suggested) about the irrational behavior of black people, it is about the irrational behavior of a certain group of people ( white people if you like) who are locked between the greatness of a man who has proven brave and loyal to the republic, and the powerful notion that black is somehow associated with evil and deception. Lesser folks are jealous of his success and prominence, Iago among them is jealous of his power, and supposes a sexual superiority which has cost him dearly ( reputation only) and the fact that Othello is black is, for Iago, a very convenient weapon against him. The Play was largely responsible for my personal feelings and attitudes toward humanity today, I am neither an anti nor a pro racist, I believe in humanity, and I see the world as a chaotic place that demands order if we are to survive a reasonable lifetime. Othello does all as a duty to himself and humanity, he marries ( late in life) and takes this new way of life with him into his new post as governor of Cypress. He murders his wife, not from an act of savage passion, but from a temporary madness brought upon him by the failure of all he has held dear, and all he had lived and striven for. He has been betrayed, by the very people he believed, to be honest, and steadfast; his honor, his understanding, and his human dignity have all taken the beating of betrayal. The unmitigated villain of this play is without a shadow of a doubt a white man by the name of Iago. N.B. I am no literary expert, I am an old actor who once had the great good fortune to play Othello.

Wow...simply stunning!

Outstanding

That was so amazing

Much Respect

Increadible.

Amazing, Ive just finished writing a letter to Shakespeare addressing the same issues! Glad to know I'm not the only one!

i watched it at the film slam today

Wow. This is so inspiring

This is beautiful

Yh she has a good voice

Remarkable!

Major sherlock vibes

well and if Mr Shakespeare was black then how would we perceive him then

amazing... it is a woooowww

'This is America' background!??

jesus christ that was good

The speech ("the poetry slam'')was good but listening to it made me feel like she needs to take a breath. (then again that might be a language technique...)

where i got my name from

BASHY!!

wow that is interesting

Trippy

Shakespeare’s answer: “ I’ll get back to you on that one....”

Oh dear, this is not the only interpretation or focus of this play. But of course just focus on race. ..If your only source of research is 'cliff notes' then......OK.....Othello is an outsider not part of the Italian court...He has risen to the height of General in the Venician army....The oppressed balck man was th emost powerful man in the army and held in high regard.

Why do people dumb down Shakespeare instead of doing the work and respecting the work? Shakespeare is Shakespeare. This is not Shakespeare. This is what you give people who can’t understand Shakespeare

Romerito esteve aqui

What did I just watch?

Vasco!

Amelia Bassano Lanier

K.

Why this is not discriminate against black? Just because it is from Shakespeare?

Schlock for the Proles.

Really, this looking backwards and declaiming what black meant in the 17th century is a time waster; the definition of what is "black" has pivoted, changed , mugged, pirouetted away at least 20 times I can recall of my life's 60 years. If everyone just does the best they can everyday, that's enough.

Stop making everything about race... this looks like Buzzfeed. There simply weren't black people in Britain at the time. Why is nobody complaining about the Asians and Africans have full-Asian or full-black casts?

Please read the Quran

Uh oh!! We have to cancel Shakespeare!!! Burn all of shakespeares work!!

didn't like it

What do people here think of the two modern adaption of 'Othello'? The American 2001 (well actually made a few years earlier but had to be shelved because they felt it was too soon after a high school massacre to how it) high school setting movie 'O' that manages to follow the storyline basically scene for scene and even word for word - right down to the Rodrigo character telling the Barantino character that his daughter has been 'stolen' because no one thinks that a rich white girl like Desdemona or Desi could possible want to be with someone like Othello or Odin unless she was forced to through 'sorcery' or assault, and her father saying 'she deceived me, what makes you think she won't do the same to you' because her not telling him about her love life somehow translates to him as "deceiving" him. Or the English 2001 (actually intended to be released that year) TV movie 'Othello' where John Othello, Ben Jago, Michael Cass are in the police and there's a sub-plot (that lead to John Othello being promoted over Ben Jago chiefly for publicity since he was able to talk a justifiably angry mob out of a full-scale riot after only 1 or two small fires and a few window got smashed) where three policemen beat a black man to death and used the same old excuses 'He just kept coming at us, I genuinely feared for my life, you know what they're like when they're angry' and the one witness who told the truth (the Rodrigo character) gets shunned at work for it. The 9th doctor plays Iago and John Othello is played by Eamonn Walker who was also Othello in the 2008 Globe production (which is also on dvd), they both gave an incredible performance