How Deep Is Iago’s Love?
Is Iago’s love as deep as his resentment? What if Iago is not methodically calculating and he is actually confused, struggling with his own desires, making it up as he goes along? I am not what I am – what does that mean? These are some of the questions Philip Seymour Hoffman asks as he approaches Iago in the (sold out) Public Theater production of Othello opening today in New York (see video below). I am reading Othello anew, examining the angles, enjoying the language, watching the videos of Laurence Fishburne, Kenneth Branagh and Irène Jacobs from the 1995 production. How much in the text is not what it seems? The seed for this production of Othello was planted a number of years ago over a Princeton lunch table, when novelist Toni Morrison issued Peter Sellars a challenge. To answer this challenge, Sellars has launched a five-year project, of which this production is the first installment. Parallel to it will be the creation of a new play by Toni Morrison entitled Desdemona, which w
