Othello (1980 film) Othello (1980 film) Othello is Liz White's 1980 dramatic adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello. An all black cast and crew, including budding actor Yaphet Kotto in his first role, created the film. Yaphet Kotto as Othello<br> Benjamin Ashburn as Montano<br> Olive Bowles as Emilia<br> Louis Chisholm, Jr. as Cassio<br> Audrey Dixon as Desdemona<br> Richard Dixon as Iago<br> Douglas Gray as Roderigo<br> Lincoln Pope as Duke of Venice<br> Liz White as Bianca<br> Jim Williams as Brabantio White's Othello began as an acclaimed performance in 1960-1961 at Shearer Summer Theater, White's own repository company on Martha's Vineyeard, and in 1960 in Harlem.
Othello (character) directors lean away from a North African Moorish interpretation but Shakespeare's textual references are unclear. Iago twice uses the word "Barbary" or "Barbarian" to refer to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the "tawny" Moors. Roderigo calls Othello "the thicklips", which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, as these comments are all intended as insults by the characters, they need not be taken literally. Michael Neill, editor of the Oxford Shakespeare edition, notes that the earliest critical references to Othello's colour, (Thomas Rymer's 1693 critique of the play, and