Othello is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War fought for the control of the Island of Cyprus, a possession of the Venetian Republic since 1489. The port city of Famagusta finally fell to the Ottomans in 1571 after a protracted siege.

Who was Othello first performed for?

The first performance of Othello occurred on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London. It became very popular and was one of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612 in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

When was Othello performed at the Globe Theatre?

It was staged on 2/ 30/1610 at the Globe Theatre, and at Oxford in 9/1610. On 11/22/1629, and on 5/ 6/1635, it played at the Blackfriars Theatre. The King's Men performed Othello in winter 1612 for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

When was Othello first played by a black man?

The first black actor to play many of William Shakespeare's leading roles, Ira Aldridge took 19th-century London by storm when in 1825 he performed Othello in the city's docklands.

Is Othello black or white?

Virginia Mason Vaughan suggests that the racial identity of the character of Othello fits more clearly as a man from Sub-Saharan Africa than from North Africa (Barbary), as north Africans were more easily accepted into society.

Act 1 Scene 1 | Othello | Royal Shakespeare Company

What is Shakespeare's longest play?

The longest play is Hamlet, which is the only Shakespeare play with more than thirty thousand words, and the shortest is The Comedy of Errors, which is the only play with fewer than fifteen thousand words. Shakespeare's 37 plays have an average word count of 22.6 thousand words per play.

Can a white man play Othello?

Racial prejudice has allowed white actors to play Othello well into the 20th century. David Harewood discusses Larry Olivier's performance in 1964.

Who played Othello in blackface?

Reception. Olivier played Othello in blackface. He also adopted an exotic accent of his own invention, developed a special walk, and learned how to speak in a voice considerably deeper than his normal one.

What race was Othello?

"Shakespeare meant Othello to be a Black Moor from Africa, an African of the highest nobility of heritage. From Kean on, Othello was made a light-skinned Moor because the West had since made Africa a slave center and the African was pictured only as a slave.”

When was the first play performed?

The first plays were performed in the Theatre of Dionysus, built in the shadow of the Acropolis in Athens at the beginning of the 5th century, but theatres proved to be so popular they soon spread all over Greece. Drama was classified according to three different types or genres: comedy, tragedy and satyr plays.

Where were Shakespeare's plays first performed?

The Globe, which opened in 1599, became the playhouse where audiences first saw some of Shakespeare's best-known plays. In 1613, it burned to the ground when the roof caught fire during a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII.

What happened to the first Globe Theatre in 1613?

Disaster struck the Globe in 1613. On 29 June, at a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII, some small cannons were fired. They didn't use cannon balls, but they did use gunpowder held down by wadding. A piece of burning wadding set fire to the thatch.

What time period is Othello set in?

Othello is set in Venice, presumably sometime in the latter half of the sixteenth-century. Venice was at war with the Ottoman empire between 1570 and 1573, so the play's reference to the threat of an attack on Cyprus could reflect a setting sometime during this period.

Why is Othello called the Moor?

Othello is referred to as the Moor because of his dark skin color. The term was initially used to describe people from the ancient Roman province, which is now North Africa, but over time the word "Moor" became an ambiguous term used to describe anyone who had dark skin.

How many Othello movies are there?

Shakespeare's Play

Orson Welles (1952) and Oliver Parker (1995) directed two of the twelve film versions of Othello. The former starred by Orson Welles himself, and the latter, by Laurence Fishburne.

When did Olivier play Othello?

The British actor, Laurence Olivier (1907–1989) played Othello for the National Theatre at The Old Vic in 1964. Maggie Smith took the part of Desdemona while John Dexter was Iago. As this photographic postcard shows, Olivier 'blacked up' to play the part, as was common until the early 1980s.

Why is Othello black?

Othello himself would have been played by an actor who had darkened his skin with soot or coal, a common technique used to indicate a character's Moorish or Turkish roots. But audiences would also have understood that Othello's dark skin was emblematic of his dark or evil nature.

Is Othello based on a true story?

That Othello and Desdemona, whose real name was Palma, really existed, is clearly proved. Even the mad jealousy of Othello is historical.

Who was the last white actor to play Othello?

It's all but certain that Shakespeare's first Othello was Richard Burbage, a white Londoner. It's even more likely that Burbage would have worn dark makeup, as actors in Britain did until the late 1980s (Michael Gambon was one of the last, at Scarborough in 1990).

What is the shortest Shakespeare play?

The Comedy of Errors, with 1,898 lines (as per the Folger Shakespeare Edition; other editions may count lines differently).

What is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy?

Shakespeare's shortest and bloodiest tragedy, Macbeth tells the story of a brave Scottish general (Macbeth) who receives a prophecy from a trio of sinister witches that one day he will become king of Scotland.

Which play did Shakespeare write first?

1589-1590.

Shakespeare is believed by most academics to have written his very first play, Henry VI, Part One in this year.

Was Othello a Berber?

Although Othello is a Moor, and although we often assume he is from Africa, he never names his birthplace in the play. In Shakespeare's time, Moors could be from Africa, but they could also be from the Middle East, or even Spain. American actor John Edward McCullough as Othello in 1878.

What race is Desdemona?

Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a Moorish Venetian military prodigy. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the Republic of Venice, Desdemona accompanies him.