If all that Shakespeare spoke were marr'd...

What if William Shakespeare were completely wrong about his women? It's a daring and almost shocking question, considering the Bard's status in the literary canon. Yet it is one that Paula Vogel's Desdemona asks without reservation, and one that Nina Shen Rastogi, BR '02, reiterates in her current production of the play.

KATIE ALDRICH/YH Desdemona? I hardly knew 'er!

Desdemona is Shakespeare's Othello as told from the women's chambers, presenting a different view of the events that ultimately led to the title character's tragic death at the hands of her husband. The scenes of the play cannot be directly correlated with those of Othello, as too much of the plot and character development in Vogel's script contradict the actions and personalities of Shakespeare's characters. The show is a female-centered alternative to the testosterone-driven original. Not exactly feminist or anti-feminist in nature, the play succeeds in questioning what Shakespeare tells us about the women in Othello.

Vogel's characters are the three women of Shakespeare's play: Desdemona; Emilia, her waiting woman; and Bianca, a local prostitute. Played beautifully by Adele Bruni, TD '02, Ginny Smith, TC '02, and Ali Ahn, CC '03, respectively, the three women tell a story that is as lacking in male intervention as Shakespeare's play is in female presence. Their tale is episodic yet fluid, like a series of snapshots in a photo album, carefully placed in chronological order. Neither the details of the plot nor the characterizations match Shakespeare's, yet the cast delivers Vogel's forceful lines so convincingly that I found myself wondering if maybe the Bard misunderstood the very women he was trying to represent. Shakespeare's Desdemona is "heavenly true" to her husband, but Vogel's is so promiscuous that when Bianca wants a day off from her oldest profession, the lady Desdemona voluntarily subs for her. In Shakespeare's version, Emilia is a wise woman, who defends the feminine desire to commit adultery, calling any reward for infidelity "a great price for a small vice." Yet in Vogel's play, the line is Desdemona's. It is she who plays with sexual experimentation, and it is the simple Emilia who earnestly advocates fidelity. The role reversal toys with a clever idea: if Desdemona's loyalty could be so misconstrued by male characters, then couldn't a male author misconstrue it as well?

Bruni and Smith are marvelous as the lady and her servant who are not quite friends, but not quite enemies either. There is a cat-and-mouse tension between them that subtly parallels the same game we know to be going on between Othello and Iago offstage. Bruni is particularly captivating, combining an often dignified and innocent exterior with a vulgar temper and a wildly sexual pulse. In her apparent sweetness, we can easily see how Othello could have been fooled. Smith's cockney-speaking Emilia, however, is not fooled, and her struggle with her feelings about Desdemona is convincing. Bianca, as a character, is central to the action in Othello, but her actual role is very small. Vogel fleshes the character out a bit, but she still confines Bianca to a "hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold" role. But Ahn delivers it well, bringing passion and exuberance to an old stereotype.

Rastogi capitalizes on the fragmented nature of Vogel's script. Interspersed with several of the live scenes are slide frames from a film storyboard by Matt Wiegle, MC '00, depicting close-ups and off-stage action. The scenes themselves are similarly cinematic: brief and separated by blackouts during which the characters change places. The plot and the acting flow well over a series of scenes that lasts just over an hour. With its constant breaks, however, the scenes remind the audience that half of the story—the male half we usually see—has been left out.

Theater

Desdemona By Paula Vogel Directed by Nina Rastogi Fri., Dec. 8, 8 and 10 p.m., and Sat., Dec. 9, 8 p.m. Nick Chapel

The play is set entirely in a back room of Othello and Desdemona's palace in Cyprus, represented well by the realistic set of Andrew Sessa, MC '02. This single setting, from which the characters rarely exit, combined with the box-like quality of the Nick Chapel stage, creates an atmosphere of confinement, of a "narrow world" that Desdemona longs to escape from. Powerless and peripheral to the main action of Othello, however, she cannot escape; she can only wait for her inevitable end.

Clearly, this is not a production for purists. Any die-hard Shakespeare loyalists will be appalled at the license Vogel's script takes with the characters of Desdemona and Emilia. Shakespeare's play specifically says Desdemona is honest, while Vogel's specifically says she is not, and such a deviation may be too much for some to handle. Personally, I'm not sure I'm willing to accept this alternative interpretation of the women of Othello, but I love Vogel's attempt to shed new light on old characters. And whether they agree with her story or not, I think most lovers of the Shakespearean way will certainly find Rastogi's production of Desdemona as intriguing and enjoyable as I did.

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