Othello/Desdemona

A post-modern take on one of the most famous love stories in western literature. In Charles Duncombe’s new drama, Shakespeare’s familiar characters are thrust into an alarming 21st century world of racial conflict, slippery genders, white privilege, career conflicts, and domestic turmoil. Othello, in the midst of an identity crisis, rejects his status as a servant of the Venetian State, hungers for political power, and experiments with the idea of self-identifying as white. Desdemona, a Lolita-like figure trapped in a caged bed, is no longer the long-suffering, endlessly patient, perfect wife of the original. She has a sharp tongue, a mind of her own, and a hunger for fame in her own right, yet underneath it all is still deeply in love with her “noble Moor.” Egged on by a video-camera-wielding Iago, hovering like a punk-rock bird of prey, and his wife, the transgender Emilia, you know from the beginning that, just as in Shakespeare, this is a love story that is bound to end badly. Just how it does speaks to the confusions, frustrations, and aspirations of our own times.