TNT THEATRE BRITAIN presents
William Shakespeare’s
OTHELLO

Touring Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Taizhou, Hefei, Shenzhen, Dongguan Huizhou, zhuhai, Yantai, Wenzhou, Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Ningbo

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

OTHELLO is Shakespeare's most perfect play, a masterpiece of dramatic construction. OTHELLO is a thriller, a love story, a tragedy and an exploration of race, prejudice, power, war and human folly. OTHELLO is written by Shakespeare at the height of his powers, its poetry is finer than HAMLET, its psychology deeper than MACBETH, its love story more compelling than ROMEO AND JULIET, its heartbreaking tragedy more moving than KING LEAR. OTHELLO might be the finest play ever written. 

And, like so many of Shakespeare's greatest plays, it is a work much misunderstood. This is not a play about the helpless victim Desdemona falling to the cruelty of her husband and treachery of Iago. This is a play about fascination - fascination in love, fascination and jealousy, fascination and death. The central characters are caught in a terrifying vortex of their own making and perhaps their own desire. Othello is the fascinating outsider, the dark "other", but also a conqueror, general and leader of men. Iago is Shakespeare's largest role, a huge complex character consumed by envy and giddy with the power he wields over his so called "superior" Othello. Desdomona abandons herself to the Moor in defiance of her father and embarks on an adventure whose tragic end is perhaps a form of desire.