American Moor

“At the place where I and his words intersected, I had been presumptuous enough to buy in to the preposterous notion that I, my intellect, my instrument, and my crazy-ass African-American emotionality could serve the words well, and be served well by them. I wasn’t taught that. I learned it. I felt him, Shakespeare.”

The Actor characterizes his early relationship to Shakespeare in this quote. He juxtaposes what he has been “taught” with what he learns for himself or feels. This foreshadows how, later, the Actor will feel tension between his own experience and interpretation of Othello with the academically trained Director.

“Nature is turned upside down, just like how, tsunamis, global warming, snow in June because Mommy Nature and Daddy Nature are having an angry domestic dispute, and she lays it out: Because of our abhorrent behavior, everybody, and everything, is fucked. And in guilt, and shame, and anger, and because Daddy don’t listen, she opens her mouth, and from forth her very viscera, riding upon this effluvium of some of the sublimest language ever given voice, comes, well, what should be said, the absolute truth of the matter: ‘These are the forgeries of jealousy!’”

The Actor describes Shakespearean plots in a way that highlights the theme of Interpreting Classical Literature in the Modern World. Here, “she” refers to Titania, a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Actor ties the environmental discord in that play to modern climate catastrophes.

“The dudes who say things like, ‘And what Shakespeare was trying to say here is…’ And you wanna say, ‘I didn’t know you knew him like that, Slick.’ It never bodes well, they start with that shit.”

The Actor draws attention to Systemic Racism in Theater. Men in positions of power, like the Director, are often white, while the Actor is Black. The Director assumes that because of his position and his fine arts education, he is the authority in the room, even though the Actor has experience living as a “large Black man,” like Othello. Though the Actor is talking to the audience and not the Director, this is the beginning of his attempt to get the Director to view the Actor as an equal and learn from him.