“Othello” was a play first produced in London in 1604 about a powerful Moor living in Venice and married to the beautiful Desdemona. He becomes jealous when the disreputable Iago falsely tells him that his wife is unfaithful. This classic by William Shakespeare runs over 3 hours with 3 intermissions and is still performed all over the world.
“American Moor” is an 85-minute play, billed as “a poetic exploration of Shakespeare, race, and America, with no intermission.” It is about a 52-year-old veteran African-American actor who is auditioning for the role of Othello before a young white director with an MFA in theater. It raises many relevant issues about acting and directing but is much deeper as it expresses the inner conflict of the actor who is nameless and just referred to in the program as the Actor.
It begins with the lights on in the theater as the Actor (Phillip Brown), breaks the 4th wall and tells us of his love of theater, especially the works of Shakespeare. We learn that his American dream is stymied by what he sees as white racists who run the American theater scene. He would love to play Hamlet, Richard II, or Romeo but he is only considered for minor roles as servants or supporting characters. When people met this 6’3” man, the first question they always asked was “did you play basketball.” And when they learned that he was an actor, they’d ask “did you play Othello?” He avoided that role. When asked by Billy, the director who was auditioning him what roles he would have liked to play, he tells the young man, Titania in “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Her lines spoke to him. Also, it is less about playing a woman than it is about breaking out of the stereotypical role in which he feels Black actors have been cast. But after 30 years in the business, he will take a shot at Othello.
The Actor is arrogant at times. Does he dare play it the way he sees it, or will he bow to the young director’s interpretation? He is resentful that Billy (Thane Madsen), is trying to tell him, a Black man, how to portray a Black man. Whose interpretation is more relevant?
Other times, when Billy is not present, the Actor goes off on rants full of cursing to the audience about his frustration. We feel for him. And it raises questions for us about who is qualified to direct whom that go beyond race. How does it feel for an experienced older actor to be directed by some young hot-shot kid? Can a man direct a play about women? In fact, when Shakespeare wrote the play, women weren’t even allowed on the stage and their roles were played by men. The original Othello was played by a white man. And one question not raised was how the Actor can respect Shakespeare so much when the white bard of Avon was writing about a Black man. There is much to think about.
I did have some problems with the production when the Actor spewed out many of his lines, so rapidly at times and so soft at other times, in Lantern’s theater in the ¾ round, that I couldn’t make out what he was saying, and it was an effort to listen. I wished director Kash Goins, who has directed many outstanding plays in the Philadelphia area, would have slowed the Actor down of upped his volume when his back was to my side of the stage.
“American Moor” was first staged in 2019 and starred its author, Keith Hamilton Cobb who is 6’3”. He’s traveled with it to many locations. This production had Phillip Brown, who man not be as tall as Cobb, but who does a fine job with Cobb’s play.
“American Moor” by Keith Hamilton Cobb at Lantern Theater Company at St. Stephen’s Theater, 923 Ludlow St., Philadelphia, PA 19107. 215-829-0399 lanterntheater.org thru December 8, 2024
Philadelphia Theater Reviews by Frank Burd 