AMERICAN MOOR (Red Bull Theater)*****

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://www.redbulltheater.com/american-moor-benefit

Available until: 7pm EDT on 16^th August which I think is midnight between the 16^th and 17^th August in the UK.

I love Othello. It’s one of my favourite plays. The title role is one of my favourite characters. A character I’d love to play. But after watching this play… I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if I still love it. And if I do, is that wrong?

I am confused and conflicted and not really in a good mental place to write this review.

But maybe a review isn’t what’s needed. I’m not even a real reviewer. I’m just some guy who sits behind a screen and pretends to know something about plays just because I’ve been in a few. Who am I to say if this is good or bad, right or wrong? The writing and the acting is outstanding. I just don't know what I believe about the issues have been raised, or what I ought to believe. So forget opinions. I’ll just give you facts.

Keith Hamilton Cobb has written this play based on his own experiences as an actor. He takes the central role, playing himself. He didn’t so much want to be a Shakespearean actor as came to understand he was a Shakespearean actor and there were many roles he wanted to play. Richard II. Hamlet. Titania (and why the hell not? I’ll be his understudy!). But because he is a black man, there is one role he is expected to play and that of course is Othello. Bur he can never play it in his way. He has to play Othello the way the white director (who in American Moor is played by Josh Tyson) wants him to. They are the only two characters in the play, though Ayana Workman reads the stage directions.

I thought this play was really remarkable and I’m really glad I watched it. I hope more people will watch and listen and think about what’s in this play. It’s powerful. It asks (and answers) important questions. Maybe not everyone who watches it will agree with Keith. I don’t know if I do or not, but I feel like I should.

Directors do always want it their own way and I do understand that because it’s their vision. It’s frustrating when I have one idea and they have another idea and it can be a bit of a battle because I’ve been working on and preparing this role and I have my own ideas and now someone’s come along and dismissed all my hard work and they don’t even want to listen to me. Even when they give me space to talk, they don’t always properly listen. But that’s just a battle of creativity. What if you feel the way you’re being asked to play a role is deeply and fundamentally wrong, and you know that because you know a lot more about the subject than the director?

This play shows us how Keith handled it.

At school, I once had to write something in English once where I had to choose a role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and explain why I wanted to play the role and how I would approach it. I chose Titania (which I pronounce in the same ‘incorrect’ way as Keith). I got a lower grade than usual and an exclamation mark in the margin. I didn’t ask my teacher what THAT was supposed to mean. I was too worried about what his reply might be. I thought I might get into some sort of trouble. Of course, it’s possible I produced a substandard essay. It might have read more like a drama student’s essay than an English student’s. Or maybe he felt I dwelt too much on who I wanted to play Oberon and Bottom. That probably wasn’t really part of the question, but I was a teen and who I was going to be kissing was a matter of great importance. But (and maybe I was just paranoid), I was left with the feeling that I shouldn’t have expressed an interest in playing a sexually attractive female. I should have chosen someone more like me. When we read plays aloud in class, I was always given a small role. A male role, of course. Usually someone unattractive or not very intelligent. Would I have got a higher mark if I’d gone with my other idea and said Snug? I’ll never know. And you know what? I don’t think I want to.