With its critical success and tendency to create a diverse cast of actors, the 2015 production of Othello by Sam Gold at New York Theatre Workshop brings the classical tragedy to the modern theatre stage with a somewhat unexpected perspective. The essay explores how the related content of Gold via Othello becomes equally a highly esteemed work and opposite to what it means to be a cultural sign, molding how culture is understood today. Through the lens of Akhimie’s interpretation of “cultivation of difference,” the production of Othello can draw out the storybook but content nature of the play that continues to challenge traditional narratives—giving way to a discussion of the enduring societal prejudices that we continue to fight.
Analysis of the Off-Broadway production of Othello by Tordorg Giles in 2015 deserves multiple points. Gold’s production first got the most impressive critical praise from The New York Times, where the text was described as “rough and furious”. The varied and pole-led Jonathan Douglas as Othello and Jonathan Francis as Iago “re-examine the traditional racial semiotics; this provokes interesting discussion on representation. To begin with, this Othello period goes along with the racial tension and the problematic nature of police injustices; it follows the incomparable social commentary. The new staging evolves through an integrated approach of a diverse ensemble, communication, and thematic conciseness, as well as remaining faithful to the original drama, generating a platform for us to review the text anew.
Sam Gold’s 2015 Othello, returning to the original, simply-dressed version of Shakespearean tragedy, knocks out the set, denouncing the dreadful influence of jealousy, racism, and the unbelievable gaps in perception and truth. Through the use of an impoverished staging, sending spectators literally into a cramped military bunker, the production somehow metamorphoses into a disorienting psychological drama of sacrileges, demons, and savage sacrifices. John Douglas Thompson, who steps in to portray Othello, starts off as a vast, somber, and slightly paranoid character who might unwittingly trust his mate to spread the poisonous seed of unbelief. Then, with his immaculate performance, the actor unravels the story of the descending of the Moor and the sickening green-eyed jealousy in himself against his wife, Desdemona. Bianca Amato plays Desdemona so that her bafflement, when the end of Othello’s life becomes apparent, gets to the audience’s heart. Yet, John Ortiz plays the Iago part in a perfectly melodious snakelike way that goes beyond family squabbles and culminates in a bitter yet resonant study of the most toxic prejudices that can exist in any society. Rarely has Shakespeare’s blood-spitting lieutenant seen so indistinguishably anyway from what the despotic man denotes and what the human evil is capable of. The music transports the listener through its delicately opened entrainment to its fiercely and shockingly visceral conclusion, putting the audience into a morbid state corresponding with the descent into madness. Even the savagery has been skillfully at the mercy of the green-eyed monster before it is magnificently portrayed.
Not only does Othello form a “cultural signifier,” which is an idea of altercations of race, envy, power, and human nature that every society confronts; it invokes in a more profound, more resonant, and extensive way such issues of envy, power, nature, and justice. Patricia Akhimie’s scholarship reveals that Shakespeare’s productions have been used as “frameworks of cultural orientation” that try to teach audiences with prejudices to define the alleged racial and cultural differences. Sam Gold’s production represents a push in both directions as it challenges that perception and withholds essential optimism. A casting technique here is Gold’s contribution, which involves choosing the race of a role in the absence of the usual visual cues. On the other hand, the tragedy still brings the concept of the “othering” and the ultimate obliteration of its main character, making his role a more convincing career throw. The play achieves the dual virtue of Akhimie’s structure by ” cultivating a sense of wisdom” through its artfulness. It also allows us to scrutinize our prejudices and views of individual and racial identity. The piece is an intensely naked mirror to the social myths that justify the elite’s self-serving agenda, exposing them in all their chilling realism by using the form of the nation’s most classic text: a thoroughly personal study of a single character. All the while, Gold’s staging is pondering over “Othello” as a cultural legend, which could be as much a foil as a catalyst.
Othello by Sam Gold is intricate in its Shakespearean language use and dissects the influence of societal prejudices on how individuals judge themselves and how relationships are nourished over its short runtime. It starts with the universal language of the sets and the music. Thus allowing the audience to question themselves about the biases they have towards race and status. The soldiers, in fact, have discussions reflecting the stereotypical masculinity of this military style as they are required to. However, visual cues about appearance do not help to overcome this categorization. It shows in a better way how often people divide others into categories based on how they look. As Bianca Amato’s Desdemona faces the escalating wrath of John Douglas Thompson’s Moorish Othello, the depiction of domestic violence unsettles one’s perception of feminine fragility and victimhood. In addition, the poisonous Iago of the movie, played by John Ortiz, becomes an ingenious and talentless manipulation device. He uses the devices of society around sex, on which the concept of heroic virtue formerly rested, to establish his worth. The rally of doubt and fanaticism contaminate the process of love and belonging, a fatal touch that renders characters with a feeling of suicide on self-imposition.
The 2015 Othello production maps powerfully to Akhimie’s discussion about incorporating racial otherness in Shakespeare through somatic marking. The bruises in Othello are brought up in one chapter where the floors are bruised, a sign that others abuse Desdemona’s body. Her physicality is cultivated and read for perceived cultural differences. The play is interpreted through that gaze, namely that Bianca Amato, as the doomed heroine, portrays the way patriarchal violence comes to be understood as something that defaces a woman’s body, defining her appearance as “bright” and soft in contrast to the harsh masculine characters. From a more general perspective, Akhimie’s writings address the framework and plot of social organizations – whether domestic manuals or classic drama plays – principally aimed at cultivating acceptance of the right race and subjugated identities. As cruelly demonstrated by Sam Gold, this reality lies at the heart of the matter. Staging, by disrupting all racial visual cues that are otherwise expected, trespasses the sought categorization and resists the idea of being used as a propaganda piece, leaving the audience with a characterization that is nothing but a mere disturbance. However, according to Akhimie, Othello is the rich soil where many concepts regarding differences (including its creation, control, and “growth” by culture) can be thoroughly analyzed. Thus, one should not miss this harsh yet gripping adaptation by Gold.
In Sam Gold’s intimate, pumping 2015 production of Othello where, Shakespeare’s most enduring work, audiences viewed this patient gateway through which the quintessence of Western literature’s most iconic African narrative is exposed as the basis of the perennial dilemma of prejudices against the other, identity and race. Orchestrating color-wise casting, a visibly involving choreography, and The four scholarly reviews serving as the research basis of this analysis reveal how the gigantic cultural signifier that is Othello, almost half a millennium after it premiered, continues to reflect the human predisposition to differentiation and the jealousy that grows out of perception. Through a process of dramatic immersion that mimics the hideous mechanic of the play, Gold’s Othello shows that Shakespeare was able to “seed” within us a sophisticated understanding of the theme of identity while then asking us to re-examine our preconceived notions of identity, which has kept “discourse” about the construction of identity alive. Shakespeare’s works are a critical place where we can consider. Finally, this modern version brilliantly explains what “cultivating the destruction of the sameness” means. It is still the case today as we are always drawn to the spiritual life.
Works Cited
Akhimie, Patricia. “Bruised with Adversity: Reading Race in The Comedy of Errors.” The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, 2016.
Akhimie, Patricia. Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference: Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World. Routledge, 2018.
Brantley, Ben. “Review: In ‘Othello,’ a Powerfully Conveyed Descent Into Jealousy.” The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/theater/othello-shakespeare-in-the-park-review.html
Gold S. “Othello.” New York City Theater: Broadway Shows, Musicals, Plays, Concerts in 2024/25, 2015, www.newyorkcitytheatre.com/theaters/newyorktheaterworkshop/othello.php.
Soloski, A. “Nytimes.com.” The New York Times – Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos, 20 Nov. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/theater/david-oyelowo-othello-new-york-theater-workshop.html.
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