Othello is a Moorish military commander who was serving as a general of the Venetian army in defence of Cyprus against invasion by Ottoman Turks.
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Othello is a Moorish military commander who was serving as a general of the Venetian army in defence of Cyprus against invasion by Ottoman Turks.
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Othello has recently married Desdemona, a beautiful and wealthy Venetian lady much younger than himself, against the wishes of her father.
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Othello defends himself before the Duke of Venice, Brabantio's kinsmen Lodovico and Gratiano, and various senators.
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Othello explains that Desdemona became enamoured of him for the sad and compelling stories he told of his life before Venice, not because of any witchcraft.
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Othello reappears and questions the men as to what happened.
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Othello blames Cassio for the disturbance and strips him of his rank.
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Othello sees this, and Iago convinces him that Cassio received the handkerchief from Desdemona.
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Othello confronts Desdemona, and then smothers her with a pillow.
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Othello is an adaptation of the Italian writer Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" from his Gli Hecatommithi (1565), a collection of one hundred tales in the style of Boccaccio's Decameron.
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Othello refuses to admit his guilt and is condemned to exile.
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Michael Neill, editor of an Oxford edition, notes that the earliest critical references to Othello's colour assume him to be Sub-Saharan, while the earliest known North African interpretation was not until Edmund Kean's production of 1814.
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Othello stayed with his retinue in London for several months and occasioned much discussion.
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Othello was frequently performed as an Arab Moor during the 19th century.
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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, seeing interracial marriages as "aberrations" that could end badly.
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Othello's army was composed of both black and white mercenaries.
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Othello was one of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612, in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.
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Stewart had wanted to play the title role since the age of 14, so he and director Jude Kelly inverted the play so Othello became a comment on a white man entering a black society.
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In 2007, Othello opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London on 4 December 2007, directed by Michael Grandage, with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello, Ewan McGregor as Iago, Tom Hiddleston as Cassio, Kelly Reilly as Desdemona and Michelle Fairley as Emilia.
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In 2009, stand-up comedian Lenny Henry played Othello, produced by Northern Broadsides in collaboration with West Yorkshire Playhouse.
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In September 2013, a Tamil adaptation titled Othello, the Fall of a Warrior was directed and produced in Singapore by Subramanian Ganesh.
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