‘Othello’ at London’s National Theatre: The Stupidity of Racism and Jealousy
And yet Othello is arguably a play more about the corrosive effects of jealousy than about race per se, a story of “deception and derangement,” when, as a result of the callous machinations of Iago, a frenzied, jealous passion leads Othello to smother his chaste wife, Desdemona. We, the audience, experience true catharsis, pity and fear as we watch this taut but lucid psychological drama unfold in an exceptional production.
Each time I watch a Shakespeare play, it clarifies some of the eternal truths at the heart of the human condition and presents me with yet another powerfully prescient and beautifully articulated insight into what it means to be a human being, often in the most dulcet, soul-stirring iambic pentameter ever to have poured forth from a pen.
Othello is certainly no exception and continues to resonate today, some 400 years after it was written, because sexual jealousy is still a basic and primal human emotion, as unchanging and perennial as the wind and the stars, as is love and the fear of betrayal. Racism, too, is sadly still rife, as is the barbarity that often accompanies it.
More: ‘Othello’ at London’s National Theatre: The Stupidity of Racism and Jealousy