HOST: Welcome to ABC Students Art Hour, I am Ailie Yeh and today we will be discussing Module B of the Shakespearean play, Othello. From today’s program, I hope our special guests will help you have an informed and deeper understanding of the play. We are privileged to have with us, Ewan McGregor who will speak to us about Iago’s use of rhetoric, from his experience of playing the character, and Damien Ryan who will enlighten us how, Oliver Parker’s film of Othello tells us about the representation of race and its relationship to its historical context. I asked our guests to share their thoughts on the pivotal Act IV, Scene I.

The scene begins in the darkness of the dungeon, where there are instruments of torture lying around and motionless shackled prisoners hanging on the wall. These instruments and dead bodies parallel Iago’s abuse to Othello as he falls into an epileptic fit amongst the shackles against the dungeon wall. The sombre music and dark lighting foreshadows an occurrence of an extreme event. When Parker transitions out of the montage, Parker shoots a close up of Othello’s clenched hand and pans up the arm to a profile shot. Iago turns to the audience and confirms his work is done. ‘Work on, my medicine work! Thus credulous fools are caught.’ Cassio enters as Iago calls for help, but then directs Cassio to leave Othello alone. As he approaches him, Parker cuts to an over-shoulder close up of Othello, who opens his eyes and ask ‘Did he confess it?’ to the audience. Using a racking focus shot, Parker spotlights Iago, who turns wide-eyed to the audience, as if to ask, Did that just happen?

Ewan McGregor, what are your thoughts about the power of language in the play and how Iago is such a manipulative and complex character. How do you read this scene in the castle?

In the film, Parker creates a strong emphasis on the diabolical evil of Iago and his hatred for the noble Othello. Iago’s use of rhetoric is triggered from his passion of jealousy, which is the ultimate driving force behind Othello’s transformation from a calm and imperturbable General to a monstrous and furious animal. Iago employs vivid imagery to evoke passion and rhetorical control from other characters. From the beginning, he uses bestial images to vulgarly describe Desdemona and Othello through the notion of animal sexuality. ‘Even now, now, very now, an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe’. In Act 3 Scene 3, Iago refers to Cassio and Desdemona ‘as prime as goats/ as hot as monkeys / As salt as wolves in pride’. Othello, also, begins to imitate Iago’s language ‘Goats and monkeys!’ after he strikes Desdemona. It shows how not only do Iago’s words infect his mind, but infect his tongue as well. In the scene, Othello falls into an epileptic fit which robs his ability to speak; the trait that distinguishes humans from animals. Devoured by jealousy, without his honour, he has become the animal that the prejudiced characters and public have been trained to fear. Iago is planting the seeds of Desdemona and Cassio’s affair into Othello’s mind by using the successful technique of hesitation, forcing Othello himself to say what Iago would have him think. He truncates his sentences and repeatedly uses the word ‘Lie - ’, to conjure Desdemona’s infidelity. The word echoes a double meaning through their conversation, lacerating Othello with thoughts of two lovers and, at the same time, accusing Iago for his abuse of truth.

HOST: So Mr. Ryan, how do you see Othello’s transformation and his race playing a big part in the play, especially in this scene, as a Director of many Shakespearean plays?

Like what Mr. McGregor said about Iago, Othello is transformed into this savage from his use of rhetoric, however, Iago’s inherent hatred is driven by Othello’s racial identity as a Moor. During the 16th Century in England, when this play was written, there were great fears of the Moors’ Muslim threat to Christendom and the black man’s quest for the symbol of white purity. Othello represents both of these fears within the play and upon the audience watching. Othello is torn between two extremes- the evil of Iago and the goodness of Desdemona- as he collapses into a mime of incarceration. Iago exposes Othello’s racial sense of inferiority, in where jealousy overwhelms him. Parker visually manifests Othello’s transformation to his native nature through his symbolism and form of music .The chains symbolizes his uncontrollable torture by Iago, in a way foreshadows the setting of the sequence in the dungeon. Parker also creates the emphasis with ethereal tribal music consisting percussion, low/ high strings and voice to reveal the unfolding of his madness. As he falls deeper into the seizure, Parker cuts back and forth from a struggling, half-conscious Othello to an erotic montage which starts with a close up of Cassio and degenerates into body parts of Cassio and Desdemona. The extreme close ups of the body parts

belie the fragments of Othello’s mind and consciousness.

HOST: Ultimately, through Iago’s passionate desire to abuse physically and mentally, the play is shaped from the assertion that race and the implications of being an individual in the position of power, who is of colour, creates Othello’s own self-destructive nature rooted in fear, doubt and insecurity. How important is the setting of Cyprus important for the transformation of the characters?

The concept of geography plays a major role in this play as the characters of Othello, Desdemona and Iago are forever transformed by their journey through the disparate worlds of Venice and Cyprus, just as these dramatic places are permanently altered by their presence. Because of this geographical dichotomy, Othello and Desdemona’s character, alone and isolated from their Venetian support system, intensifies Iago’s unrelenting psychological assault. The location in Cyprus, inspired by amorous deity and the wilderness of the island, provides the perfect location for Iago to convince Othello of his wife’s sexual infidelity, which the pivotal scene is set in.

HOST: Yes I agree, Othello’s vulnerable character, as an outsider, allows Iago to torment his mind and corrupt his noble human status to a bloodthirsty animal through his intense use of imagery. Othello depicted as a black hero for this tragedy, Shakespeare challenges stereotypes and demonstrates, how in a white society, the Moor’s colour leads to the physical, psychological and geographical isolation. Thematically, in Act IV Scene I, Shakespeare uses Othello’s disability to mirror and amplify his fragmented state of mind and ultimate destruction of the self.

Ewan McGregor and Damien Ryan, thank you for joining ABC Students Arts Hour. Listeners, be sure to tune in for another Q&A session tomorrow with Kate Mulvany and John Bell about Othello Module B.