"I had no intention of playing this character again. But as soon as the light went on, the house caught fire and it's been burning ever since. David Harewood is talking about Othello, ahead of a new production from the Tony award-winning director Tom Morris that opens in London's West End on 23 October. The production, which also features Toby Jones as Iago and Caitlin Fitzgerald as Desdemona, sees Harewood return to the role almost 30 years after his landmark performance at the National Theatre."
"Olivier's 1964 performance, which later aired on the BBC, shows the actor thickly painted and shiny with blackface makeup, capped with a kinky dark wig. In interviews he described going down to the docks to study Black people so that he could perfect their movements and mannerisms. The performance became a blueprint: to this day, it is still heavily referenced as aspirational. Even Harewood, who made a BBC documentary in 2023 about the strange and racist practice of blackface, describes Olivier's Othello as flawless."
David Harewood returns to Othello in a West End production directed by Tom Morris that opens on 23 October, alongside Toby Jones as Iago and Caitlin Fitzgerald as Desdemona. Harewood first played Othello at the Swan theatre in Worcester and in 1997 at the National Theatre, where he became the first Black man to portray the role on that stage. The production's context recalls a history of directors casting white actors in blackface instead of Black performers. Laurence Olivier's 1964 blackface performance remains influential, despite its racist practice, and Harewood later made a BBC documentary examining blackface.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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