Desdemona (play)

Desdemona is a play by Toni Morrison. It was first produced in Vienna in May 2011. The title character of the play is Desdemona, the wife of the title character in Shakespeare's Othello. The 2011 play arose from a collaboration between Morrison, director Peter Sellars, and musician Rokia Traoré, and revolves around Desdemona's relationship with the African nurse who raised her.

It marks at least the third time a modern female playwright has written a play with Shakespeare's Desdemona as the main character. There is also Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief (1993) by Paula Vogel and Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) (1988) by Ann-Marie MacDonald. All three plays could be construed as feminist takes on Shakespeare, but otherwise have highly divergent interpretations of the character of Desdemona.

The official playscript of Desdemona was published in 2012 by Oberon Books, with a foreword written by the director Peter Sellars.

Performances

Desdemona

Desdemona is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello (c. 1601–1604). Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a man several years her senior. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the Republic of Venice, Desdemona accompanies him. There, her husband is manipulated by his ensign Iago into believing she is an adulteress, and, in the last act, she is murdered by her estranged spouse.

The role has attracted notable actresses through the centuries and has the distinction of being the role performed by Margaret Hughes, the first actress to appear on an English public stage.

Sources

Othello has its source in the 1565 tale, "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. While no English translation of Cinthio was available in print during Shakespeare's lifetime, it is possible that Shakespeare knew both the Italian original, Gabriel Chappuy's 1584 French translation, and an English translation in manuscript. Cinthio's tale may have been based on an actual incident occurring in Venice about 1508.

Billy Merson

Billy Merson (1879–1947) was an English music hall performer and songwriter. He began his career while working in a lace-making factory, and doing shows in the evenings. It took some time until he could make a living from his stage work. "For five or six years on the stage, I survived on a salary hardly enough to keep body and soul together", he said. In 1922, he starred in Whirled into Happiness. As a comedian Merson was often paired with George Formby Senior.

Songs he wrote include "The Photo of the Girl I Left Behind", "Desdemona" and (possibly his best known) "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life", which also became one of Al Jolson's first hits.

He was chairman of the music hall at the Players Theatre in London. He also appeared in a few films, including three made in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, Billy Merson Sings Desdemona, Billy Merson Sings Scotland's Whiskey (a satire on Sir Harry Lauder), and Billy Merson in a Russian Opera (all 1926-1927).

He came from Nottingham.

Desdemona (John's Children song)

"Desdemona" is a song by the English cult band John's Children. It was released in 1967 and failed to chart in Britain, possibly due to the fact it was banned by the BBC for the controversial lyric (lift up your skirt and fly). However, the song was a minor hit in Europe.

The song was composed by Marc Bolan, who at the time was a member of John's Children. It was later covered by Radio Stars (featuring former John's Children singer Andy Ellison) (1978), Marsha Hunt (1969) and The Jam were known to have played the song live.

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