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Shakespeare in Performance: Othello. By LOIS POTTER. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002. Illus. Pp. xiv + 242. $74.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.
In Shakespeare in Performance: Othello, Lois Potter covers a remarkably wide range for such a slim volume, tracing early modern to contemporary stage productions and films, including operatic adaptations and cinematic offshoots. Potter sketches out a broad overview of Othello on stage and screen and then focuses in on specific, influential productions, providing detailed descriptions and keen observations of their theatrical and cultural contexts.
Potter is able to cover so much material so economically in part because she organizes it so adeptly. Following an introduction outlining sources, textual issues, dates, and early stage history, the book is divided into two main sections, with actor Paul Robeson as the point of division. The first section, "Othello before Robeson," includes four chapters: each of the first three focuses on one of the play's main characters (Othello, Desdemona, or Iago) and the performance traditions connected with that figure; the fourth chapter centers on modern productions of the play. Potter first surveys the influential actors who played the "heroic" Moor in Othello-centered productions from the Restoration to the nineteenth century. Rather than treating their performances in isolation, Potter examines how these actors played the role within the contexts of the actor/manager theaters and their own careers, comparing their portrayals of Othello as the stage "hero" or "lover" to their other non-Shakespearean roles.
Similarly, in the next chapter, Potter focuses on the Desdemona-centered productions, most of which were heavily influenced by operatic forms, traditions,...