Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, Sydney
October 24, 2015
Desdemona is the product of a meeting of minds: a crucible where the theatrical and literary brilliance of director Peter Sellars and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison have passed through the prism of Shakespeare’s tragic heroine and achieved a rare and potent alchemy.
Just a single scant reference in Act IV of Othello implies that Desdemona may as a child have had an African nurse named Barbary, but from this minute seed Morrison has crafted an entire world. From a hinterland between life and death the title character, performed with astonishing vigour by American actress Tina Benko, reveals a secret history, recounting her upbringing as the daughter of emotionally detached parents, her fateful and sexually charged first meeting of the Moor commander, Othello, and the emotional corrosion of their love that would result in her murder. Beyond the specifics of this character’s story, Desdemona stirs a dark and confronting undercurrent that exposes the lingering contemporary resonances with this story’s racial and gender inequality and domestic abuse.
This emotionally rich yet challenging piece of theatre does not employ the conventional architecture of...
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