IAGO AS A SEDUCER.
IAGO AS A SEDUCER. The digital view of Othello also raises the possibility that Iago can be played as literally an attempted seducer with a homosexual attachment to Othello. The wikipedia article on Iago says that some critics thought that Kenneth Branagh played Iago as homosexual. Branagh’s response was that: “I had no consciousness of doing that at all, but I did play as though he loved Othello. But I don’t mean in a sexual sense.” And this review by Christopher Bray of terry Coleman’s biography OLIVIER retells a theater story: “Researching the part of Iago, Olivier had a chat with Freud’s biographer, Dr Ernest Jones, who told him he was playing a homosexual. At the next rehearsal, Olivier surprised Ralph Richardson’s Othello by kissing him on the lips.”
Poor Ralph Richardson! Well, if anybody could cope with Olivier and his theatrics, it was Richardson. Now I don’t feel quite so sorry for Olivier when Dustin Hoffman put him through all his nonsense.