American Moor

“Nature is turned upside down, just like how, tsunamis, global warming, snow in June because Mommy Nature and Daddy Nature are having an angry domestic dispute, and she lays it out: Because of our abhorrent behavior, everybody, and everything, is fucked. And in guilt, and shame, and anger, and because Daddy don’t listen, she opens her mouth, and from forth her very viscera, riding upon this effluvium of some of the sublimest language ever given voice, comes, well, what should be said, the absolute truth of the matter: ‘These are the forgeries of jealousy!’”

The Actor describes Shakespearean plots in a way that highlights the theme of Interpreting Classical Literature in the Modern World. Here, “she” refers to Titania, a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Actor ties the environmental discord in that play to modern climate catastrophes.

“The dudes who say things like, ‘And what Shakespeare was trying to say here is…’ And you wanna say, ‘I didn’t know you knew him like that, Slick.’ It never bodes well, they start with that shit.”

The Actor draws attention to Systemic Racism in Theater. Men in positions of power, like the Director, are often white, while the Actor is Black. The Director assumes that because of his position and his fine arts education, he is the authority in the room, even though the Actor has experience living as a “large Black man,” like Othello. Though the Actor is talking to the audience and not the Director, this is the beginning of his attempt to get the Director to view the Actor as an equal and learn from him.

“First up, a little white man is asking me if I have any questions about being a large Black man, enacting the role of a large Black man in a famous Shakespeare play about a large Black man which, for the last fifty, sixty years or so, has been more or less wholly the province of large Black men…

No…I ain’t got no questions…But you should. You ought’a have nothing but questions.”

The Actor draws attention to Systemic Racism in Theater. Men in positions of power, like the Director, are often white, while the Actor is Black. The Director assumes that because of his position and his fine arts education, he is the authority in the room, even though the Actor has experience living as a “large Black man,” like Othello. Though the Actor is talking to the audience and not the Director, this is the beginning of his attempt to get the Director to view the Actor as an equal and learn from him.

“Put on your poker face, Brotha.”

The Actor gives himself a pep talk in preparation for dealing with the microaggressions of the Director. The Actor mentions that Black people in America often need to disguise their true emotions so they do not upset white people. The Actor tells himself to put on an emotionless “poker face” in response to the Director’s racism since he knows that the Director will perceive any emotionality as a threat.

“You think that he thinks that he needs to do…‘a number’ for these guys, in order to succeed in getting from them the thing that you think he wants…And so, in order to get this gig, ah no wait!…in order to succeed in getting from you the thing that you think I want…you’re implying that I need to do ‘a number…’ for you.”

The Actor repeats the emphasized words “a number” to draw attention to the performativity demanded of Othello. The first repetition refers to Othello’s speech in front of the Senate and the second refers to the Actor’s monologue in front of the Director, drawing a parallel between the men.

“He’s here to do a job he’s damn good at if folks would just get over themselves and let him…But meanwhile he stands here, in front of you, having to play this game of civility and field your stupid comments with a look of interest and a smile while wanting nothing so much as to slap you knowing, if he did, that the ages of ancestral animosity accumulated in that single stroke would probably kill you dead.”

The Actor uses the character of Othello and his speech before the Senate to draw attention to how the Senate desired a form of “respectability politics” from Othello, where Black people are forced to adjust their behavior to seem “respectable” to the white gaze—this is Othello’s “game of civility.” This parallel demonstrates how the Actor engages the theme of Interpreting Classical Literature in the Modern World, showing that this same kind of behavior is expected of Black people in contemporary society.

“[O]ur experience so far surpasses your anemic little awareness on the matter that I might as well be talkin’ to a fuckin monkey.”

In his frustration, the Actor articulates what he sees as a fundamental and unbridgeable difference in the life experiences between himself and the Director, who is a white man, by invoking the idea that he feels like he is trying to communicate with a creature from a different species. The Actor uses the metaphor of talking to a “monkey” to flip around the historic, white supremacist belief that equated Black people of African descent with monkeys.

“I seem a little angry to you?…You think any American Black man is gonna play Othello without being in touch with his anger…at you? Yeah, well…if that’s what you think, then you better go back to having white boys do it.”

The Actor draws attention to his emotiveness, which he has historically been expected to police and disguise in white spaces, like Shakespearean theater. He also alludes to the historic use of blackface in performances of Othello. From the early modern period through the early 20th century, the role of Othello was not performed by Black men but by white men in blackface.

“ACTOR. Could the ‘pains’ for which she gives him a ‘world of sighs’ be those she sees him endure as he rallies a quiet strength to perform that belittling minstrel show yet one more time, most enthralled perhaps with his complete lack of incessant bombast?

DIRECTOR. Minstrel show? Oh, I don’t think it’s that.”

The Actor compares the performance Othello is forced to give in front of the Senate to a minstrel show, an idea immediately dismissed by the Director. The Actor comes to this conclusion based on the long, documented history of Othello being performed within the context of American anti-Black “minstrel shows or Othello ‘burlettas’” (Macdonald, Joyce Green. “Acting Black: ‘Othello,’ ‘Othello’ Burlesques, and the Performance of Blackness.” Theatre Journal, vol. 46, no. 2, 1994, pp. 231-49; 237). Othello burlettas are brief, comic operas, where the character of Othello spoke “in minstrel dialect” (Macdonald 246).

“DIRECTOR. Could you…I have this thing about the soft Rs. It always sounds to me like someone attempting to sound British. Could you try and stay aware of that?

And what do you say when the very awareness and intellect that define your humanity are answered with insanity???

ACTOR. …Sure…

…It was called ‘a Standard American dialect’ when I was in school.”

The Director critiques the Actor’s accent, which uses a “soft R” sound typical of Southern accents, which in turn affected the pronunciation of a dialect called African American Vernacular English (AAVE). The Director incorrectly interprets this accent as the actor trying to “sound British.” The Actor knows that the Director is hinting that he should use a “Standard American dialect,” which normalizes upper- and middle-class speech and is often spoken by white people in the United States.

“And, at the time, those characters were either the Black sitcom buffoons, or the victim/scoundrels of America’s preferred African-American reality…Not a Hamlet in the lot…Or even a Horatio.”

The Actor describes the characters his agent offered to him at the beginning of his acting career, which were indicative of the types of characters available for Black actors in media. This points out not only the theme of Systemic Racism in Theater, but in popular culture more generally. Characters who displayed emotional complexity or intelligence, like Hamlet and Horatio, were not available to Black actors. Instead, the Actor had access to only racist, stereotypical roles.

“ACTOR. He picks up the text and reads from it, perhaps not quite aloud, but audible.

ACTOR. ‘…Her name, that was as fresh

As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black

As mine own face.—’

No! No, Gotdammit, no!”

The Actor expresses frustration as he reads aloud from Othello. This passage synonymizes the color “black” with grime, implying corruption and dirtiness, and associating these attributes with Blackness. In this passage, whiteness is seen in opposition, and is construed as “fresh” and pure. Othello uses this dichotomizing imagery to discuss Desdemona’s reputation. This association of evil or corruption with blackness and fresh or “pure” things with whiteness was a popular trope through the medieval and early modern periods, and these words were often used to code racist ideas about racialized Blackness and whiteness. The Actor, who is Interpreting Classical Literature in the Modern World, realizes the harm of such imagery.

“I began rather to feel like I have a brother who can’t defend himself. And you been slappin’ him around for four hundred years.”

At times, the Actor feels negatively toward Othello, but he also feels protective toward him. He feels kinship with Othello because of how Othello is treated, both by characters inside the play and by “Directors” through the centuries who have approached him with racist attitudes that stereotype Black people and performers.

“Desdemona is thrilled that such a man even exists. That one of him actually exists. That one of him is actually a thing is a joyous revelation to her. Her very being emanates…upon seeing him standing there, what is he, he’s large, and dashing and dark, yeah sure whatever, how he moves, like nothing she’s ever seen, how he stands, sure, fine. Look, so far beyond that bullshit…is how, beneath a too often scowling brow poorly concealing fifty years of adversity, she can see a child’s eyes, and a little boy’s thoughts forming behind them, and how his sculpted mouth makes words, and yet they are not always the words that express the thoughts that she sees him thinking.”

The Actor talks in stream-of-consciousness narrative style as he meditates on the romance between Othello, a Black man, and Desdemona, a white woman. The Actor believes that Desdemona is the only character who recognizes that Othello is a human, not an amalgamation of racist tropes.

“DIRECTOR. I mean, let me play devil’s advocate…A little obsequiousness might not be a bad thing.

ACTOR. Nobody ever plays devil’s advocate. They play their own advocate, and hide behind that stupid idiom to avoid having to take responsibility for it.”

The Actor points out the Director’s use of the popular idiom of the “devil’s advocate,” often used to express an unpopular opinion. This idiom allows the speaker to purport an opinion while eliding personal responsibility for it. The Actor shows how this idiom disguises the power dynamic between the two men. The white man in the room—the Director—tells the Black man in the room—the Actor—to be “obsequious.” In the context of historic American enslavement, Jim Crow–era segregation, and civil rights, these dynamics recall historic white supremacist power dynamics. The Actor shows how the Director perpetuates these dynamics while shifting responsibility away from himself.

“Why you wanna punish yourself with having some big-ass angry Negro all up in your grill gettin’ ready to so ungently disabuse you of all your most deeply seated notions about sex and race and religion, and most important, self? You don’t…You ain’t gonna confront those notions fully if you rehearse for a year, so maybe this here five minutes is gonna be just about all your unimpeachable porcelain perspective can stand.”

The Actor discusses what it would take for the Director to begin unlearning the racial stereotyping that the Actor perceives in his worldview. He uses the imagery of a “porcelain perspective” to depict that the Director’s view is in line with the larger system of systemic racism and white supremacy in the United States. The Actor also points out that this viewpoint is intersectional: Not only does it affect the Director’s opinion about race, but also about gender, race, religion, and personal identity.

“What I’m sayin’, there’s stuff there to make a play worthy of four hundred years, but that ain’t the story they’ve been tellin’ over four centuries, and you can’t tell it any better in three weeks, you can only tell it again. And the bigger issue is that’s all you ever really want to do.”

Here, Personal Identity and Artistic Integrity intersect since the Actor feels like his personal identity can make his artistic performance of Othello both genuine and novel. The Actor observes that Othello has been performed from the same perspective since it was written and perpetuates the same negative stereotypes. He finds it disturbing that people like the Director don’t want to innovate Othello by drawing on the experiences of people like the Actor.

“You’ll turn right around and call that ‘playing the race card.’ Motherfucker, you’re doin’ Othello. You picked up the race deck. When your casting director called Black me and asked me to come up in here and be seen by white you for this role, you dealt me the race hand…What other cards you want me to play?”

The Actor references a popular idiom that people use to express the opinion that someone is bringing a race into a conversation when it isn’t warranted. The Actor knows that expressing how his race makes him more qualified to understand the interiority of Othello will solicit this phrase from the Director. The Actor makes the point that every aspect of their interaction is touched by societal racism, so there is no occasion on which bringing up the subject would be unwarranted.

“He is an arrogant, ill-mannered, perfect, precocious Black child in the body of an aging badass. But he is a boy, like Tamir Rice was a boy…like Trayvon Martin was a boy, who would challenge you for the right to his truth and his dreams, because that’s what boys do, just as I strain at the bonds of decorum to challenge you now.”

The Actor touches upon the theme of Interpreting Classical Literature in the Modern World as he draws parallels between the character of Othello and two Black boys who were killed by gun violence in the 21st century. Tamir Rice was a 12-year-old boy who was killed by police in 2014 for carrying a toy gun, while Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old boy who was killed by a civilian in 2012 who reported Martin to police for looking “suspicious.” The Actor highlights that Rice and Martin’s “truth” and “dreams” were disregarded when they were murdered in racially-motivated shootings, just as productions of Othello disregard Othello’s interiority.

“In his heart, he is Caliph of all Iberia still, and he strides about on his great, stout legs, laughing as big as any sky, and letting his beneficence bathe over all those about him. And he shouts front he shore from the bottom of his voice to the top of his mighty lungs so as they hear him back across the Strait of Gibraltar, in Morocco, Mauritania and back through the ages of his people’s glorious past, ‘Have I not done well? Am I not wonderful, just as you?’”

The Actor points out Othello’s accolades, which sometimes go overlooked as he serves in the Venetian army. The Actor imagines Othello’s interiority, and the way he reflects on how he has made his ancestors proud. The Actor imagines Othello as a man of pride and dignity, rather than a man portraying the “obsequiousness” the Director demands.

“Some of my brothers, strong, elegant, Black and warlike, erudite, and vigilant, have asked me why. They say, ‘Little Brother, why? Why, why, why, why the broken vessel of Othello, incapable as it is of holding everything that we are; our breadth and depth, our magic, our magnificence; incapable of containing our truth? Why seek vainly to redeem him? He is no kin to you, rather he is the child of one who could have had no love for you.”

The Actor says that his Black friends ask him why he tries to “redeem” Othello through his compassionate and complex portrayals. They point out that Othello is not a genuine representation of a Black man, but a stereotypical depiction written by William Shakespeare, who often embedded racist stereotypes against marginalized people like Africans, Muslims, and Jews in his plays.

“Tragically flawed, yes…Just like you, Brotherman, and like me. Like everybody. He is wholly human. But he is Black. And to be Black here has only ever meant to be more misread, misrepresented, misinterpreted…more misunderstood.”

The Actor gets to the heart of his argument about why Othello deserves an actor who tries to do justice to his character. The Actor acknowledges the terrible things Othello has done but also thinks the racialization of the character lends to his being vilified more harshly than other tragic heroes.

“And if I’m gonna do right by him, every time I audition for this play is a conflict of interests. He’ll tolerate you because he wants the job; because absurdly—to his horror—after ages, and generations, after four hundred years he still finds himself beholden to the likes of you for the opportunity to do the thing that he does better than anything else he’s ever done.”

The Actor situates himself and other Black, male actors within a lineage with Othello, once again blurring the lines between his and Othello’s characters. The Actor points out the dark irony of being an expert in a field—like he and Othello are—but still being beholden to less experienced people because of Systemic Racism in Theater and other cultural arenas.