Othello's Odyssey

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die.

Othello possesses an unusually detailed performance record. The first certainly-known performance occurred on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London. Subsequent performances took place on Monday, April 30, 1610 at the Globe Theatre; on Nov. 22, 1629; and on May 6, 1635 at the Blackfriars Theatre. Othello was also one of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612-13, in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.
The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on Oct. 6, 1621 by the bookseller Thomas Walkley, and was first published in quarto format by him in 1622, printed by Nicholas Okes. Its appearance in the First Folio (1623) quickly followed. Later quartos followed in 1630, 1655, 1681, 1695, and 1705; on stage and in print, it was a popular play.
At the start of the Restoration era, on Oct. 11, 1660, Samuel Pepys saw the play at the Cockpit Theatre. Nicholas Burt played the lead. Soon after, on Dec. 8, Thomas Killigrew's new King's Company acted the play at their Vere Street theatre, with Margaret Hughes as Desdemona—probably the first time a professional actress appeared on a public stage in England.
It may be one index of the play's power that Othello was one of the very few Shakespearean plays that was never adapted and changed during the Restoration and the eighteenth century.

It seems Othello has always been a powerful and popular play and has always drawn the attention of the critics.

Saif

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