American Moor

The Actor suggests that playing Othello too dramatically will encourage the audience to laugh at him. He says that Desdemona’s affection comes from watching Othello rally “quiet strength to perform that belittling minstrel show” in front of the Senate (26). The Director disagrees with the reference to minstrel shows and still wants the Actor to say his lines with heightened emotion.

The Actor wonders whether he should compromise the character of Othello by playing him as the Director asks. The Director also asks the Actor not to use “the soft Rs” because he thinks it sounds like a British accent. The Actor tells the audience that, in his youth, he was eager to please and would have done what the Director asked. He dreamed of playing characters like Hamlet and Prince Hal, not Othello. He reflects on the auditions his first agent got him, which were often for stereotypical and sometimes racist depictions of Black men.

Just like tall, Black men are asked if they play basketball, tall, Black men who act are asked if they’ve played Othello. The Actor has never aspired to play Othello, and as a young man, he was offended when people would say he’d make a “great” Othello, not knowing why they thought he’d make “a great emotionally unstable misogynist murderer” (28).