If Obama is Othello, who plays Iago?

Friday, 23rd January 2009

Good grief. From the Guardian's theatre blog:

Shortly before the inauguration of Barack Obama, I received a press release from the RSC with the subject line: "Obama: Is he an Othello for our times?"

To the best of my knowledge, the 44th president of the United States has never once murdered his wife in a jealous rage before taking his own life. So, no, President Obama is not "an Othello for our times". But why on earth would the RSC want to suggest a parallel?

Not bad, but not good enough. Perhaps the RSC mean to suggest that Obama will be manipulated (and destroyed!) by his subordinates - one of whom may feel that they have, unjustly, been overlooked for, nay denied, a prize they thought was deservedly theirs. Presumably, then, the RSC mean to cast a woman as Iago and that this actress will bear an uncanny, if disturbing, resemblance to one Hillary Rodham Clinton...

Or, you know, it could just be fatuous nonsense. Time, then, for a War on Press Officers and, more significantly, an end to what Andrew Hayden rightly terms, the gruesome cult of "relevance-fetishism."

UPDATE: Philip Klein suggests that this makes Joe Biden Cassio.

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Alf Tupper

January 23rd, 2009 9:11pm Report this comment

No.

Othello is an Othello for our times.

Tony Howard

January 27th, 2009 8:17pm Report this comment

As it happens, this "fatuous" press release relates to a panel discussion of the topic, 'Is Obama an Othello for our Times?' It's one of a series of RSC events at Warwick Arts Centre, including an exhibition and discussion of the career of Paul Robeson - a man who linked Shakespeare and American politics in extraordinary ways - and the source of the Obama/Othello topic? An article in the Spectator last February, titled, 'Is Obama an Othello for Our Times?'

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