42 pages • 1 hour read
American Moor
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BetaPages 25-50Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 25-31 Summary
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). Though he read the play and considered the role, he was ashamed to be associated with Othello. He doesn’t think Othello, as a character, is very different from 20th-century stereotypes of Black characters.
The Actor becomes aware that he’s had a small “meltdown” and gathers himself. He remembers when one of his “brilliant Black progenitors” told him “that white man whose eyes ya been lookin’ at yourself through” will always want to see certain things in him (29), whether they are there or not. That’s when the Actor became attached to Othello. When he is inevitably called in to audition for Othello, the Actor now wants to defend him.
He reflects on how actors are accused of being arrogant but are also constantly told they aren’t good or compelling enough. He thinks about Desdemona, who was thrilled a man like Othello exists, and sees into the true heart of him. The Actor tells the audience that “this American life” forces him to appear less than he is (31). He knows that people like him and Othello scare the audience, and the Actor is worried that will never change.
Pages 32-44 Summary
The Actor tells the Director that Othello knows he is the only Black man in the Senate, and he’s a valuable “commodity” who would be heard even if he whispered. He doesn’t think Othello needs to be obsequious before men who need him. The Director insists that obsequiousness isn’t bad and asks if the Actor understands.
The Actor knows he’s done badly at the audition. He asks the audience why the Director wants to “punish” himself by being disabused of his assumptions on race, sex, and religion by the Black men he calls in to audition for Othello in the short span of time he has devoted to putting on the play; the Actor says it takes lifetimes to unlearn internalized prejudice.
He thinks if there was a contemporary headline about a man who killed his wife, people would judge him harshly, not produce a play about him. The Actor thinks that the resentment that drove Othello to murder might be worth producing, but that isn’t the version of Othello that was ever put on in the last 400 years. He thinks people just want to retell the same story, which is why his own experience as a Black man is invalidated.
All the Actor wants is for the Director to admit he doesn’t know Othello like the Actor does. He knows one cannot escape racial politics when staging Othello. The Actor knows he has colleagues who would play Othello as the Director envisions, but they wouldn’t be able to embody Othello’s pride and humanity. The Actor envisions an Othello who is playful and joyous and lifts Desdemona over his head.
As the Actor mimes this, his joy turns to misery, and he sinks to his knees. He says that he has started experiencing an ache in his shoulder, and his doctor said it was a normal symptom of age, as the Actor is 52 years old. The Actor reflects on his unrealized dreams and the social system he lives in that has never allowed him to reach them. He thinks about Othello, a glorious prince and warrior who should be proud and honored before the Senate, but who recognizes he is an aging “Moor.” The Actor tells the audience that if the Director really wants to know all the “tiny little cracks” in Othello’s armor (38), he should listen to the Actor.
The Director asks the Actor to repeat the monologue again. Instead, the Actor tells the audience about his Black elders who have asked him why he wants to redeem Othello, a character created by a man who “could have no love for [the Actor]” (38). The Actor says that he is only himself, and he loves to hear Othello speak through himself, just as he loves to hear the “Black man” speaking through himself. He calls them “two mighty forces converging in me” (39). He thinks Othello has tragic flaws just like everyone, but because he’s Black, he’s “misread.” He hopes his portrayal might help someone see Othello anew. He wants to keep trying to get people to see this, though he isn’t sure if his perseverance is wise.
The Actor asks the Director about a line in which Othello references how often he is at war—Othello sees war as a refuge from the Senate’s “tyrant customs.” The Actor tells the Director about how Black American men like him strive to keep a “rein on full half of myself” so white people don’t get nervous (41). He asks the Director if he could tell him about Othello’s complexity without calling him “crazy.” The Director begins to speak, telling the Actor to “listen,” but the Actor interrupts, saying it’s the Director who needs to listen. The Actor and Director begin speaking over each other.
After this, the Actor finally tells his story: His mother and father participate in a program where senior citizens take classes at the community college to learn new things. The Actor asks his father why they never do a class on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and his father says he doesn’t need to hear white people talk to him about Black people. The Actor feels kinship with his father after this, and he wonders if Othello ever felt the same. He knows Othello would “take issue” with the Director, and the Actor will always try to do right by Othello in auditions. He thinks it’s “absurd” that Othello still suffers 400 years later. The Actor wants the Director to connect with him, to challenge his beliefs and have his own beliefs challenged in turn, to deviate from the actions of characters like Brabantio, and to create something new together.
The Director thanks the Actor for coming in; the Actor acknowledges this and the scene fades.
Pages 45-50 Summary
The narrative voice of Keith Hamilton Cobb introduces a few appendices, which contain small additions to the text that he performed in his premiere but subsequently took out.
Appendix 1 corresponds to the play’s page 28. The Actor more explicitly connects the struggles of actors being told they aren’t good enough to the struggles of Black Americans. He discusses his Shakespeare 101 class in college, which he loved and engaged in eagerly, intimidating his professor. Then, he reflects on his “own” Desdemona, a girl named Monica Greene.
Appendix 2 corresponds to page 30. It expands slightly on the Actor’s speech about the time it would take the Director to unlearn his bias.
Appendix 3 corresponds to page 35. The Actor speaks as Othello in modern vernacular but gets a sudden leg pain, reminding him of his age.
Pages 25-50 Analysis
In the play’s first half, the Actor drew attention to the fact that Othello is being forced to perform for the Senate’s “white gaze,” which is a phrase that alludes to the assumed white audience that views him with ingrained racial biases. Cobb purposely alludes to the white gaze and parallels Othello and the Actor by including the audience, among whom the Director sits, as a major entity and symbol in the play.
In this half, the Actor more clearly parallels Othello’s speech to the Senate with a “belittling minstrel show” (26), thereby drawing attention to the history of racism within Shakespearean plays. The Actor is offended that a brave, respected warrior like Othello is forced to make impassioned pleas before the Senate, solely because of his race. The Actor’s observation is supported by Shakespearean critics who have also noticed that Shakespeare often “asks audiences to laugh at racialized figures” (Akhimie, Patricia. “Racist Humor and Shakespearean Comedy.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race. Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 47-61; 48). On the Shakespearean stage, actors often wore blackface to portray non-white characters. This history of blackface performance led to the proliferation of 19th century “minstrel shows or Othello ‘burlettas,’” in which Othello, and sometimes Desdemona, was portrayed by white actors in blackface with exaggerated, racist accents and make up, which were typical characteristics of minstrel shows (MacDonald, Joyce Green. “Acting Black: ‘Othello,’ ‘Othello’ Burlesques, and the Performance of Blackness.” Theatre Journal, vol. 46, no. 2, 1994, pp. 231-49; 237).
These racist depictions of Othello persisted through the 20th century, which brings up the theme of Interpreting Classical Literature in the Modern World. In 1966, Laurence Olivier portrayed Othello in “shiny blackface with a wig of kinky black hair and […] the insides of his lips smeared and thickened with a startling raspberry red,” looking like “an end man in an American minstrel show” (Browther, Bosley. “The Screen: Minstrel Show ‘Othello’: Radical Makeup Marks Olivier’s Interpretation.” The New York Times, 1966). So, when the Actor calls the speech a “belittling minstrel show” (26), he is alluding to this history of Othello performances done for the “white gaze.” The Director’s quick dismissal of the Actor’s interpretation—“Minstrel show? Oh, I don’t think it’s that.” (26)—is made more absurd by the extensive historical documentation that backs up the Actor’s claim.
The Director’s dismissal of the Actor’s perspective even when the Actor has evidence on his side brings up the theme of Systemic Racism in Theater. The Director also tells the Actor to use heightened emotion while playing Othello, and this exaggerated emotionality is often a feature of minstrel shows. Further, the Director says the Actor must use a “standard American dialect” when speaking (26), further demonstrating his tone policing of the Actor’s performance. He wants the Actor to perform a stereotypical depiction of Othello that reminds the Actor of the first roles he was offered as a young Actor: “Black sitcom buffoons, or the victim/scoundrels of America’s preferred African-American reality” (27). These kinds of media stereotypes affect many people of color, and the Director’s vision of Othello aligns with the racist ideas he holds of Black men. The Actor engages the theme of interpreting classical literature in the modern world by connecting these 20th- and 21st-century media stereotypes both to Othello’s depiction as a historical character and to how the Actor is being asked to play Othello in the present day.
The Actor also muses on Personal Integrity and Artistic Identity by discussing the sense of estrangement he feels between the roles he has been offered, the way he is being asked to play Othello, and the way he knows himself to be. He says he changed over time from seeing Othello as “embarrassing” to seeing him as a “brother.” The Actor acknowledges that a “brilliant Black progenitor” once told the Actor “that white man whose eyes ya been lookin’ at yourself through, he’s always gonna need to see certain things whether they’re there to be seen or not” (29). This mentor draws the Actor’s attention to how he has internalized the white gaze’s judgements and expectations for himself, and he has neglected his personal identity as a Black man. So, when the Actor becomes aware of his personal biases that stem from his own “white gaze,” he revises his initial disdain of Othello for being a pathetic character—instead, he realizes that he and Othello are both Black men trying to survive in a racist society.
The Actor realizes that popular interpretations of Othello’s character stem from racist ideas about how Black men are and how they should behave. He thinks that Shakespeare and the generations of directors who interpreted the role “see certain things” about Othello “whether they’re there to be seen or not” (29), and that this says more about the perspective of those men than about Othello himself. The Actor has an alternative view: He imagines that “[i]n his heart,” Othello “is Caliph of all Iberia still, and he strides about on his great, stout legs, laughing as big as any sky” (37). Othello has an interiority that neither Shakespeare nor the Director could possibly begin to imagine, because they don’t share Othello’s experiences, like the Actor does. Since Othello is a fictional character, he “can’t defend himself” (30), so the Actor believes that he must “defend and protect this much maligned, misunderstood, mighty character” (30). By defending Othello, the Actor is defending himself and other Black men.
Finally, the Actor returns to the theme of interpreting classical literature in the modern world by discussing whether Othello is worth producing in the 21st century. He says that if the Director must put on Othello at all, he has an “opportunity” to “go deep” and engage Othello’s interiority with his production as no productions have before (43). He admits this will be a challenge, saying, “God knows it ain’t easy…but no future worth the havin’ ever was…” (44). The Actor asks the Director to connect genuinely and personally with the Actor for the sake of their collective futures, even though this will be difficult. Despite the Director’s repeated microaggressions, the Actor is still the one approaching him and extending a hand for the sake of reconciliation and equity. While these issues of race and privilege are framed within the context of a Shakespearean audition, they are also indicative of larger societal discussions on racial equity in the United States. The play positions systemic racism in theater as a microcosm of systemic racism in the United States. Even though the Director does not take the Actor’s offer, the Actor leaves the stage with the “hint of a recurring smile” (44). His “recurring” smile shows how the discussion he had with this Director is only the latest in a long line of similar encounters, and there are likely many similar encounters to come. Despite the Director’s dismissal of the Actor, the fact that the Actor keeps approaching directors and audiences repeatedly, with generosity despite his difficult experiences and challenges, leaves the play on a hopeful note.
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