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“It Was Me Who Combed Her Hair” : Audience Participation in Two Italian Rewritings of Othello

• Tempera, Mariangela

The last act of Othello has occasionally triggered the reaction of malespectators rushing to save Desdemona and has frequently left the entireaudience tense and uneasy. Two Italian rewritings of Shakespeare’stragedy explore the potential for audience response to Othello in originaland imaginative ways. They are Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Che cosa sono lenuvole? (1968) and Un bacio . . . un bacio ancor . . . un altro bacio (1993), aneducational theater piece inspired by Pasolini’s short film. This paperanalyzes in depth the interplay of the film viewers with the internalaudience and the performers in Nuvole, and the strategies employed bythe directors to encourage audience participation in Un bacio. It alsohighlights how both rewritings use Othello to address issues of honorand race in Italian culture.

• Arts

• Theater

Shakespeare, Othello, audience, Italian theater

Title should read: “It Was Me Who Combed Her Hair”: Audience Participation in Two Italian Rewritings of Othello