STUDENT THEATER GROUP TO PRESENT OTHELLO WITH A TWIST

Who is Othello? What is a Moor? What is a marriage? The student-run Shakespeare Performance Troupe will challenge audiences to consider these questions in its spring production, to be performed in the Goodhart Music Room at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 14, 15 and 16. Director Madelynn von Baeyer '06 aims to explore the complicated intersections and divisions of identity categories by presenting Othello as a lesbian.

Von Baeyer says that the text of the play has been altered only minimally, with the masculine pronouns referring to Othello becoming feminine. The references to Othello's color, many of which are insults uttered by Othello's treacherous false friend Iago, remain, although both characters will be played by white actors. Othello is played by Lilah Rahn-Lee '05 and Iago by her twin, Charlotte Rahn-Lee '05.

"Iago's insults are very important to the play because they are what inflames the other characters' racial prejudice against Othello," von Baeyer explains. "In our production, Iago attacks Othello with racial slurs even though he and Iago look very much alike: that calls attention to the crucial role of language in creating the categories we use to define each other."

"Our goal in adding the layer of homosexuality to this story," says von Baeyer, "is to examine the differences and similarities in prejudices based on race, on sexuality and on gender. They are different issues, and people react to them differently. We hope that it will be a little bit jarring, but also thought-provoking, for the audience to see and hear the conventions and terminology of these biases mixing and overlapping."

This is the first time in the memory of any of the current members of the SPT that the group has attempted one of the Bard's tragedies, von Baeyer says. She points out that this production also marks the first time that the dedicated but informal group has had a member — Maggie Hoyt '05 — dedicated solely to costumes and props.

The Rahn-Lee twins will be joined in the cast by Lindsay Gold '07 as Desdemona, Chelsea Phillips '05 as Emilia, and Elizabeth Hanson '06 as Cassio. Meg Reber '06 is the show's producer.

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