It’s been seven years since Perseverance Theatre has done Shakespeare, but that’s ending this week as “Othello” opens. Director Tom Robenolt and Jamil Mangan sat down with me on A Juneau Afternoon to talk about the play.
Listen to the the 11-minute interview here:
Robenolt says the play is about the outsider.
“The entirety of the title is called ‘The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice,’ and when he writes the ‘Moor of Venice’ he’s saying the outsider of Venice. And that it’s easy for somebody who is the outsider to be vulnerable and manipulated and that’s exactly what happens in this play,” says Robenolt.
Othello is played by Jamil Mangan who you might recognize from his performance as Joseph Asagai in Perseverance’s 2012 production of “A Raisin in the Sun.”
“It’s almost every black male’s dream role to play Othello. To have this opportunity. It’s so great that Shakespeare, being ahead of his time, wrote a character like Othello, a main character who happens to be yes, of African descent,” says Mangan.
Despite being written in the 17th century, Mangan says the play tackles themes that are still relevant today.
“It’s relatable today, the play, in that we often fear what we don’t know, or don’t really understand. And here is this individual, like Tom said, was the outsider and at the same time was a man that everybody revered but then also feared to integrate within their society. And so it’s interesting how some of those … social issues, we’re still plagued with those today,” says Mangan.
The play officially opens Friday at 7:30 p.m., but you can attend a pay-as-you-can performance Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
