Othello from William Shakespeare

With his Othello, Shakespeare gave western literature one of its greatest archetypes, Iago, and, through him, a fierce reflection — yet steeped in devotion — of human weakness, of the unpredictable propensity we have for evil, and our ability to welcome it as a part of ourselves that is beyond suspicion.

“Chance and reality are the two forces that drive history, the factors that Iago, a sophisticated improviser, combines and manipulates to achieve his dream of one who is devoted to ruin, both within and without. Alongside him, Othello and Desdemona, unwitting accomplices in his plot and victims of chance that leaves them no possibility for redemption. […] Underlying the project, I have imagined a sort of overturning of Shakespeare canon, with an all-female cast. It was a poetic decision. A ruse to free the public eye from preconceptions of the story and its themes and allow the audience to experience the terrible awareness that any one of us can find ourselves playing the role of victim or of tormentor, if will, weakness and chance are aligned like stars in a constellation.”

Andrea Baracco