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Desdemona
The story of Desdemona from Shakespeare's Othello is re-imagined by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison, Malian singer and songwriter Rokia Traoré, and acclaimed stage director Peter Sellars. Morrison's response to Sellars’ 2009 production of Othello is an intimate dialogue of words and music between Desdemona and her African nurse Barbary. Morrison gives voice and depth to the female characters, letting them speak and sing in the fullness of their hearts. Desdemona is an extraordinary narrative of words, music and song about Shakespeare’s doomed heroine, who speaks from the grave about the traumas of race, class, gender, war — and the transformative power of love. Toni Morrison transports one of the most iconic, central, and disturbing treatments of race in Western culture into the new realities and potential outcomes facing a rising generation of the 21st century.
64 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1994
43 people are currently reading
2687 people want to read
About the author
Toni Morrison
234 books23.4k followersChloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. Morrison earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first black female editor for fiction at Random House in New York City in the late 1960s. She developed her own reputation as an author in the 1970s and '80s. Her novel Beloved was made into a film in 1998. Morrison's works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States and the Black American experience.
The National Endowment for the Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities, in 1996. She was honored with the National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters the same year. President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 29, 2012. She received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2016. Morrison was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2020.
Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. Morrison earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first black female editor for fiction at Random House in New York City in the late 1960s. She developed her own reputation as an author in the 1970s and '80s. Her novel Beloved was made into a film in 1998. Morrison's works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States and the Black American experience.
The National Endowment for the Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities, in 1996. She was honored with the National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters the same year. President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 29, 2012. She received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2016. Morrison was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews
September 26, 2020
Recently, I’ve been getting interested in the postcolonial literary practice of “writing back,” a term that was coined by Salman Rushdie in his now infamous article The Empire Writes Back With A Vengeance, in which he discussed the shift in power in the 1960s that allowed many more marginalised writers to get published and tell their stories. Marginalised writers were finally given the opportunity to speak for themselves and instead of being treated as colonial objects by their Western counterparts, could break the silence they were condemned to for literally hundreds of centuries.
The term “writing back” can also be used more narrowly, referring to marginalised writers “writing back” to the colonial canon by taking silenced characters (either absent or present in the source material) and giving them a voice. The most prominent example might be Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, a novel in which she fleshes out the character of Antoinette “Bertha” Cosway who only “growls” and “gnaws” in Jane Eyre as Rochester’s first locked-away wife (some of ya’ll might know her as the “mad woman in the attic”), but more recent examples are Meursault, contre-enquête by Kamel Daoud in which he narrates the backstory of the nameless “Arab” of Camus’ L’Étranger and Toni Morrison’s Desdemona.
Toni Morrison, alongside the help of Malian singer and songwriter Rokia Traoré (who provided the lyrics for the songs in this play and performed them on stage) tries to answer these questions by removing Desdemona from the margins and putting her in the centre. However, Desdemona isn’t the only woman who was silenced in Shakespeare’s play. There is another woman who is missing: Barbary.
In Othello, Desdemona tells her companion, Emilia, that she can’t get a certain song out of her head. She tells her that she learned this song from her mother’s maid, Barbary, who dies while singing it, of a broken heart. In order to understand the significance of the passage who have to know that in 17th century London, “Barbary” meant Africa. The Barbary pirates were hijacking British vessels off the coast of Africa, enslaving their white, British crews. In 1600, a delegation of ambassadors from the Barbary court, Africans of high degree, arrived in London to negotiate with Queen Elizabeth – an event that stirred much discussion in London (…as you can probably imagine). Shakespeare choosing the name “Barbary” implies that here is another African character in this play, not just Othello. We are left to reflect that Desdemona was raised by an African maid who told her African stories and sang to her African songs.
As a written text, Desdemona doesn’t work all that well because the magic really happened on the stage. But even though there is no performance of the play available online, you can still catch a glimpse of the magic by listening to some of the songs that Rokia Traoré wrote for this play (which I would highly recommend as it enhances the experience!!), e.g. “M’Bifo”, “Dianfa” and “Kèlè Mandi”.
In Desdemona, Toni Morrison has created a safe space in which the dead can finally speak those things that could not be spoken when they were alive. And so finally, the women inside Shakespeare’s play and those in the shadows, just outside of it, find their voice.
In Shakespeare’s late tragedies, the ideal woman – Desdemona, Virgilia, Cordelia – was mostly silent. For Morrison, the ideal woman speaks. And as she speaks, she reveals secrets, hopes, dreams, but also her own imperfections.
At the end of the day, I am very sad that I will never be able to see this play on the stage. It’s a piece of art that was clearly created for that exact purpose. On the page, it’s easy to get confused by the translations of the songs, the abrupt change of scenes. Only being able to read the play wasn’t all that satisfying: I felt like something was missing, and it sure did. The music, the voice, the magic that can only happen on the stage.
[If you want to get an idea of how the play was performed originally, you can watch this video here.]
The term “writing back” can also be used more narrowly, referring to marginalised writers “writing back” to the colonial canon by taking silenced characters (either absent or present in the source material) and giving them a voice. The most prominent example might be Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, a novel in which she fleshes out the character of Antoinette “Bertha” Cosway who only “growls” and “gnaws” in Jane Eyre as Rochester’s first locked-away wife (some of ya’ll might know her as the “mad woman in the attic”), but more recent examples are Meursault, contre-enquête by Kamel Daoud in which he narrates the backstory of the nameless “Arab” of Camus’ L’Étranger and Toni Morrison’s Desdemona.
My name is Desdemona. The word, Desdemona, means misery. It means ill fated. It means doomed. Perhaps my parents believed or imagined or knew my fortune at the moment of my birth. Perhaps being born a girl gave them all they needed to know of what my life would be like. That it would be subject to the whims of my elders and the control of men. Certainly that was the standard, no, the obligation of females in Venice in the fifteenth century. Men made the rules; women followed them. [...]Desdemona is a play that tries to give voice to a woman who was never really allowed to speak in the Shakespeare play that she sprung out of. In Othello, she is portrayed as this angel (as opposed to Iago who functions more like the devil sitting on Othello’s shoulders) and we are never really let in on her feelings: what did she actually think of Othello? Why did she wanna marry him, even though it would mean to be dismissed by her own family? What was her life like before she met him?
They were wrong. They knew the system, but they did not know me.
I am not the meaning of a name I did not choose.
Toni Morrison, alongside the help of Malian singer and songwriter Rokia Traoré (who provided the lyrics for the songs in this play and performed them on stage) tries to answer these questions by removing Desdemona from the margins and putting her in the centre. However, Desdemona isn’t the only woman who was silenced in Shakespeare’s play. There is another woman who is missing: Barbary.
In Othello, Desdemona tells her companion, Emilia, that she can’t get a certain song out of her head. She tells her that she learned this song from her mother’s maid, Barbary, who dies while singing it, of a broken heart. In order to understand the significance of the passage who have to know that in 17th century London, “Barbary” meant Africa. The Barbary pirates were hijacking British vessels off the coast of Africa, enslaving their white, British crews. In 1600, a delegation of ambassadors from the Barbary court, Africans of high degree, arrived in London to negotiate with Queen Elizabeth – an event that stirred much discussion in London (…as you can probably imagine). Shakespeare choosing the name “Barbary” implies that here is another African character in this play, not just Othello. We are left to reflect that Desdemona was raised by an African maid who told her African stories and sang to her African songs.
Today,In Morrison’s play, Rokia Traoré was chosen to compose these songs and play the role of Barbary on stage. The songs interlude with the dialogue, so that Barbary is given almost as much screen time as Desdemona herself. Rokia Traoré’s work references African tropes and traditions. “Dongori” for example, refers to a woven cloth of thorns, a lament and an image that evokes a bitter African proverb for young women: your bridal veil will be your funeral shroud.
I aspire to self-respect.
Mama,
do you understand me?
Today
I aspire to self-esteem.
Papa,
will you forgive me?
As a written text, Desdemona doesn’t work all that well because the magic really happened on the stage. But even though there is no performance of the play available online, you can still catch a glimpse of the magic by listening to some of the songs that Rokia Traoré wrote for this play (which I would highly recommend as it enhances the experience!!), e.g. “M’Bifo”, “Dianfa” and “Kèlè Mandi”.
In Desdemona, Toni Morrison has created a safe space in which the dead can finally speak those things that could not be spoken when they were alive. And so finally, the women inside Shakespeare’s play and those in the shadows, just outside of it, find their voice.
In Shakespeare’s late tragedies, the ideal woman – Desdemona, Virgilia, Cordelia – was mostly silent. For Morrison, the ideal woman speaks. And as she speaks, she reveals secrets, hopes, dreams, but also her own imperfections.
SA’RAN: I mean you don’t even know my name. Barbary? Barbary is what you call Africa. Barbary is the geography of the foreigner, the savage. Barbary? Barbary equals the sly, vicious enemy who must be put down at any price; held down at any cost for the conqueror’s pleasure. Barbary is the name of those without whom you could neither live nor prosper.Shakespeare’s Desdemona is divine perfection, but Toni Morrison allows her to be human, to make mistakes, and finally, with eternity stretching before her, to learn, and then to understand. And since we wouldn’t expect anything less from our literal queen, Mama Morrison really came through and called Desdemona out for treating her maid like a slave (=> DESDEMONA: You blame? / SA’RAN: I clarify!). She is not interested in reflecting the image of Desdemona as a perfect saint, she is interested into getting to unpack the real woman that she was.
At the end of the day, I am very sad that I will never be able to see this play on the stage. It’s a piece of art that was clearly created for that exact purpose. On the page, it’s easy to get confused by the translations of the songs, the abrupt change of scenes. Only being able to read the play wasn’t all that satisfying: I felt like something was missing, and it sure did. The music, the voice, the magic that can only happen on the stage.
[If you want to get an idea of how the play was performed originally, you can watch this video here.]
March 9, 2013
As you might or might not know, Othello is not just my favorite play, but probably also my favorite piece of literature ever. I wrote my thesis on it and I have very clear views on it. For instance, I resent the racist interpretation that claims, Othello just succumbed to jealousy. It is much more complex than that, as are the characters.
That being said, the 'Leerstelle' / vacancy that is Desdemona has always bothered me and I even attempted to put her story into words. Needless to say, I failed to express what I had in my mind.
It needed Toni Morrison to do it. She has, in my opinion, given answers to all those questions that remained open in Shakespeare's play. It is short, succinct and precise. The songs are wonderful and evocative. It is complex. The women have their say, finally.
I love it. I love Toni Morrison's writing. She simply has no equal. And I am grateful she took on the subject.
That being said, the 'Leerstelle' / vacancy that is Desdemona has always bothered me and I even attempted to put her story into words. Needless to say, I failed to express what I had in my mind.
It needed Toni Morrison to do it. She has, in my opinion, given answers to all those questions that remained open in Shakespeare's play. It is short, succinct and precise. The songs are wonderful and evocative. It is complex. The women have their say, finally.
I love it. I love Toni Morrison's writing. She simply has no equal. And I am grateful she took on the subject.
October 17, 2019
4/5stars
I do love Toni Morrison so much. Also this subverted the FUCK out of the original text and i weirdly liked it way better than "othello" oops?
I do love Toni Morrison so much. Also this subverted the FUCK out of the original text and i weirdly liked it way better than "othello" oops?
May 22, 2023
toni morrison was kind of insane for this
March 26, 2024
a beautiful and whole (?) thing which supersedes the label of mere adaption by the emphasis, soave, and space given for interconnectedness as an act and a theory. both about and for healing.
October 15, 2023
I have no idea when this got plopped on my desk (and frankly don’t want to know) but it is now my favorite theatrical act of all time. Granted, my theater experience is pretty limited, I think any theater lover or literature lover will have warm feelings toward this text. Too many lovely takeaways to even dare covering the major themes in a petty GR review. You just must read this.
May 29, 2023
„Love is complete, whole, fearless; otherwise it is merely a banquet, a feast planned to sate a hunger for variety, not commitment to one choice.”
znałam kontekst, wiedziałam o czym jest otello, choć nie przeczytałam całości, dlatego szekspirowską fabułę miałam tylko zarysowaną. to był wielki błąd - rozumiałam konteksty, ale wiem, że o wiele więcej bym wyciągnęła ze sztuki toni morrison, gdybym zapoznała się wcześniej dokładnie z treścią dzieła szekspira. mimo tego, bardzo dużo dało się z niej wyciągnąć; była przepełniona przemyśleniami i spostrzezeniami, które z pozoru są oczywiste, ale przy głębszej analizie jednak mają drugie dno. warto przeczytać.
znałam kontekst, wiedziałam o czym jest otello, choć nie przeczytałam całości, dlatego szekspirowską fabułę miałam tylko zarysowaną. to był wielki błąd - rozumiałam konteksty, ale wiem, że o wiele więcej bym wyciągnęła ze sztuki toni morrison, gdybym zapoznała się wcześniej dokładnie z treścią dzieła szekspira. mimo tego, bardzo dużo dało się z niej wyciągnąć; była przepełniona przemyśleniami i spostrzezeniami, które z pozoru są oczywiste, ale przy głębszej analizie jednak mają drugie dno. warto przeczytać.
January 12, 2018
Far more experimental than my normal read but I really enjoyed this one. It brings further depth to Othello by giving voice to the characters and addressing potential nuanced undertones to the original story. I will definitely read this again one day, because it was so dense that it's hard to review fully objectively. It's a high 4 for me. Kept from a 5 because of the density and the brevity. I wanted more in the kind of way that I didn't want it to end.
June 3, 2014
Between the mumbled passages of defiance and screamed lines from Shakespeare's original, I have absolutely no idea how this is considered a play when there's effectively no character or plot. But that's contemporary drama, I suppose?
January 25, 2023
Giving this five stars solely to spite the guy who is currently stood near me mansplaining the entire plot and is being extremely critical of it. Get fucked.
March 14, 2023
get her sa’ran
June 9, 2023
This play is gloriously pretty, and the only reason I dock it a star is because I think it has to be seen performed in order to understand what Morrison and Traoré are doing with the music of the story.
But this is a fantastic breakdown of Othello and its characters. Good god. I feel the need to read more Toni Morrison IMMEDIATELY because she gave us zingers like:
“Did you think loving another was a profit-driven harvest: choosing the ripe and discarding the rot? Love is complete, whole, fearless; Otherwise it is merely a banquet, a feast planned to sate a hunger for variety, not commitment to one choice. Honest love does not cringe at the first roll of thunder; nor does it flinch when faced with the lightning flash of human sin.” (p. 39)
“Yet Cassio lives to rule and we do not because love cannot survive without trust. Your doubt and my righteousness mangled our love.” (p. 54)
Awesome stuff.
But this is a fantastic breakdown of Othello and its characters. Good god. I feel the need to read more Toni Morrison IMMEDIATELY because she gave us zingers like:
“Did you think loving another was a profit-driven harvest: choosing the ripe and discarding the rot? Love is complete, whole, fearless; Otherwise it is merely a banquet, a feast planned to sate a hunger for variety, not commitment to one choice. Honest love does not cringe at the first roll of thunder; nor does it flinch when faced with the lightning flash of human sin.” (p. 39)
“Yet Cassio lives to rule and we do not because love cannot survive without trust. Your doubt and my righteousness mangled our love.” (p. 54)
Awesome stuff.
September 2, 2024
I never imagined I would rate anything by Toni Morrison with just one star, but here we are. This play offers a fresh take on one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, Othello, which happens to be my absolute favorite among his works. I've read it three times! The story unfolds from Desdemona's perspective, featuring her dialogues with various characters. Additionally, the play incorporates music, with Rokia Traoré performing songs that serve as the voice of Desdemona's nanny, Barbary.
Initially, I expected to focus primarily on Desdemona's perspective, but the play presents a variety of characters. Sadly, the monologues and dialogues feel overly crafted, bordering on excessively poetic. While Toni Morrison certainly didn't aim to replicate Shakespeare, her work seems to fall short of his lyrical brilliance. I regret to say that a comparison is unavoidable. From what I've gathered, the songs don't add much to the overall experience of the play. Perhaps seeing it performed live would alter my opinion.
In my view, this text might have been better suited as a novella or even an article. I found the play to be rather disappointing.
Initially, I expected to focus primarily on Desdemona's perspective, but the play presents a variety of characters. Sadly, the monologues and dialogues feel overly crafted, bordering on excessively poetic. While Toni Morrison certainly didn't aim to replicate Shakespeare, her work seems to fall short of his lyrical brilliance. I regret to say that a comparison is unavoidable. From what I've gathered, the songs don't add much to the overall experience of the play. Perhaps seeing it performed live would alter my opinion.
In my view, this text might have been better suited as a novella or even an article. I found the play to be rather disappointing.
October 7, 2022
Ordinarily, I probably wouldn’t have chosen to read this but it was interesting to see Desdemona’s perspective and the conversations she had with the other characters in the afterlife. I enjoyed Toni Morrison’s writing style: she embraced Shakespeare’s language and made it her own. The entire play had a fluency to it that read like a poem. 3.5⭐️
October 27, 2022
this made me look at the story of othello in a whole new light.
February 17, 2025
i just looooove feminist literature
Read
May 2, 2025Biggest apologies for reading this the day of class and subsequently not even going to class. An insanely creative and interesting adaptation
February 5, 2023
4.5/5
this was surprisingly so good. it’s always very refreshing to enjoy school readings and this is one i would definitely come back to. you can really see how well thought out this was in such an effortless way.
this was surprisingly so good. it’s always very refreshing to enjoy school readings and this is one i would definitely come back to. you can really see how well thought out this was in such an effortless way.
September 25, 2024
Toni Morrison avrebbe potuto scrivere Otello, ma William Shakespeare non avrebbe mai e poi mai potuto scrivere questo capolavoro.
October 23, 2023
Like a 3.9⭐️
December 10, 2024
I am not the meaning of a name I did not choose.
November 18, 2025
love morrison and while my reread did not strike me as much as the first time i read this, desdemona is beautifully written and i need them to release the recording of the play!!!!
February 10, 2021
A beautiful experience created by Toni Morrison and Rokia Traoré.
However, I think it's a shame that the written edition loses the multilingual aspect of the performance. On stage, Rokia Traoré performs her songs in bambara (a language of Mali), which conveys a sense of magic, of in-between.
It is a completely different experience to read these words entirely written in English and to receive the performance: https://youtu.be/v6Pr8-DzPGM
It brings a richness, a poliphony which is inherent to the play - down to its very conception.
It must be quite something to get the full theatrical experience of this play. For my part, I could only watch extracts from recordings and listen to Traoré's song while reading the words. It was quite a journey!
Very powerful and a fascinating retelling of Shakespeare's play.
However, I think it's a shame that the written edition loses the multilingual aspect of the performance. On stage, Rokia Traoré performs her songs in bambara (a language of Mali), which conveys a sense of magic, of in-between.
It is a completely different experience to read these words entirely written in English and to receive the performance: https://youtu.be/v6Pr8-DzPGM
It brings a richness, a poliphony which is inherent to the play - down to its very conception.
It must be quite something to get the full theatrical experience of this play. For my part, I could only watch extracts from recordings and listen to Traoré's song while reading the words. It was quite a journey!
Very powerful and a fascinating retelling of Shakespeare's play.
June 28, 2024
Desdemona:
Did you imagine me as a wisp of a girl?
A coddled doll who fell in love with a
handsome warrior who rode off with her
under his arm? Is it your final summation of
me that I was a foolish naïf who surrendered
to her husband's brutality because she had
no choice? Nothing could be more false.
It is true my earth life held sorrow. Yet
none of it, not one moment was "misery."
Difficulty, yes. Confusion, yes. Error in
judgement, yes. Murder, yes. But it was my
life and, right or wrong, my life was shaped
by my own choices and it was mine.
Toni Morrison's short play Desdemona is a fascinating examination of the characters in Shakespeare's Othello. The voices in this play interact with Shakespeare's play in unique, intriguing ways. I enjoyed Morrison's romp through the intricacies of Shakespeare's drama.
I only wish the drama as presented here had more structure: It's difficult to determine what's song, who is speaking, or what is happening on stage. Certainly, there's enough drama in the voices alone to rivet one's attention, but this slim edition hypes the director Peter Sellers and the musician Rokia Traore, but their contributions are not given any credence within this text. We have to assume the staging was dramatic and the music/singing was evocative. If this is truly a collaborative work between three artists--as the introduction maintains--then this book only provides a third of what went on.
Still worth a read, though.
November 16, 2022
"I am beyond sorry; it is shame that strafes me. And shame too for diminishing our life together as spectacle. It was never that."
hooaaoughaoeigea god. toni morrison's piece is such a good companion piece to Othello. short, but still a punch to the gut about the topics of race, gender, misogyny, and power in the oppressive world Shakespeare wanted to reflect. one star taken away because this was clearly a play (an experimental one at that) that was meant to be watched rather than read, and reading it was definitely a struggle, especially with the songs that kind of made my eyes glaze over
hooaaoughaoeigea god. toni morrison's piece is such a good companion piece to Othello. short, but still a punch to the gut about the topics of race, gender, misogyny, and power in the oppressive world Shakespeare wanted to reflect. one star taken away because this was clearly a play (an experimental one at that) that was meant to be watched rather than read, and reading it was definitely a struggle, especially with the songs that kind of made my eyes glaze over
January 6, 2024
"It's not Toni Morrison's best," someone said to me in a coffee shop today when he noticed I was reading Desdemona. He then proceeded to tell me about the Toni Morrison book he read at 25 that would have changed his life at 21.
This anecdote is a decent depiction of my own assessment. The "poetry" is a bit prosy, a bit too obvious for my own tastes, but what's a bit lacking in ambiguity for me may be paradigm-shifting to undergraduates... and even "not the best" Toni Morrison is still full of insight and worth reading.
This anecdote is a decent depiction of my own assessment. The "poetry" is a bit prosy, a bit too obvious for my own tastes, but what's a bit lacking in ambiguity for me may be paradigm-shifting to undergraduates... and even "not the best" Toni Morrison is still full of insight and worth reading.
March 23, 2022
I wish I could see it performed because the written text is simply not the same as what I imagine it would be to wish. Beautiful prose and moving meditations on gender, race, and legacy. One of my favourite lines is about Desdemona refusing to acknowledge her own unconscious racist behaviours:
"Desdemona: You blame?
Sa'ran: I clarify!" p.48
Great example of writing back to Shakespeare and bringing out the hidden oppressive themes within his plays.
"Desdemona: You blame?
Sa'ran: I clarify!" p.48
Great example of writing back to Shakespeare and bringing out the hidden oppressive themes within his plays.
August 1, 2023
This is so interesting, and such a cool interpretation of Othello that touches on race and womanhood and class and grief through the perspective of the Desdemona and the conversations she has with other characters in the afterlife. Toni Morrison has some banger quotes in here… just don’t think that ebook was the correct way to process this — found myself being confused often and I wish that I could see this play out on stage.
June 14, 2021
Interesting, but a little confusing in format.
Upon a bit further reflection I'm removing a star because one of the main goals of this piece was to humanize Desdemona and make her seem more like a person and less like a saint, and I don't feel that goal was accomplished in the few pages that we had here. It was lyrical and compelling, just not the sort of justice I was hoping for.
Upon a bit further reflection I'm removing a star because one of the main goals of this piece was to humanize Desdemona and make her seem more like a person and less like a saint, and I don't feel that goal was accomplished in the few pages that we had here. It was lyrical and compelling, just not the sort of justice I was hoping for.
September 13, 2023
Morrison’s revisions, dialogue and depth of character are fantastic here - with important new layers to the original play for Desdemona, Othello and others. Rigorous and luxuriously written stuff. Maybe it sounds better performed and experienced on the stage, but the lyrics by Rokia Traore don’t fit as well with the whole text.
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