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 negative connotations. Othello was frequently performed as an Arab Moor during the 19th century. He was first played by a black man on the London stage in 1833 by the most important of the nineteenth-century Othellos, the African American Ira Aldridge who had been forced to leave his home country to make his career. Regardless of what Shakespeare intended by calling Othello a "Moor" – whether he meant that Othello was a Muslim or a black man or both – in the 19th century and much of the 20th century, many critics tended to see the tragedy in racial terms,