Othello

Premiere: 10.02.2016
Final show: 11.05.2018 (Currently no tickets available)

Othello has made it, he has arrived at the top of the Military and political hierarchy of the imperial power of Venice. He is respected by society and has an influential wife in Desdemona. But not everyone is so enthusiastic about his Vision of a pluralistic society in Venice. Offended by being denied advancement, Iago spins a web of traps that lead Othello into the madness of jealousy and, in the end, to murdering his wife.

In Othello Shakespeare traces the rise and fall of a politician– a typical Elizabethan play of intrigue and murder, appearance and truth. But Othello offers political fuel in two respects. Because racist images and attributions are mixed into Iago's revenge fantasies that make Othello into the savage constructed by Iago. The racism in this tragedy is employed with full awareness and it courts the favour of the audience: the caricature of this creepy phantasm behind the façade of a civilized character was the stuff of nightmares in early colonial England. Thus Iago becomes the unsung hero and director of a didactic play of racist ideology. Soeren Voima and Christian Weise – who recently deconstructed the Orientalist fairytale Little Muck into a wild Berlin family-friendly play at the Gorki – now apply themselves, based on Othello, to the subjects of personal racism, structural exclusion and economic conditions in the system.

Shakespeare Special: Receive a 25% discount off the regular price when you purchase tickets for both OTHELLO (19.12.) and THE MERCHANT OF VENICE