Othello

performance
The performance is essentially focused on racism: how does a white world respond to the success of a black man? Othello is a celebrated army commander, married to the beautiful Desdemona. And he is black. His aid Jago cannot stand him. He ensures that both Othello’s fairytale marriage and his career are poisoned by mistrust.

design
Othello and Desdemona continously have to make their way through a society dominated by white men: politics, justice, the military and nightlife. We show the locations from the play as a military parade, inspired by the marches in Riefenstahl films but with the dynamics and effects of a contemporary video clip. The end result is a sparkling white world where everything shines and glints. Poles, masts, lamps, flags, sails are all lined up tightly. The performers themselves are responsible for the construction of this “übermenschliche system”, because they are the ones who carry the set-elements on and off. Dominant, menacing and compelling, that’s how the web is built around Othello and Desdemona. The parade ends in a death march when the wedding bed of Othello and Desdemona is carried on stage like a bier, passing the poles that now form a hedge of gallows.