BY S. NARASIMHAM, B.A., B.L. ¹

The title no doubt seems to be presumptuous but presumption has been ever the weakness of man. The novelty of my attempt will however serve as an excuse for any flaws in my sentiments or expression. It has long been my earnest desire to write on acting and its interpretation of the play acted. I am not here like the hypercritic to carp and criticise the author piecemeal: whether or not he conforms to the sacred Unities or whether his words have Icelandic or outlandish derivation. It is my endeavour to bring out how I interpreted the different roles and what acting has brought to me and to my understanding of the author. It need hardly be said that the actor is more in tune with the author than the scholar emerging from a closet, and their relationship is more intense and devotional. Now let me pass on to say how I interpreted Desdemona.

Desdemona has not many lines to her part. She has a few scrappy sentences here and there. Yet how vividly we visualise her form, figure and character! You have to learn about Desdemona, less from herself and more from others. Brabantio introduces us to her, even in his excitement, with a beautiful description of

and Othello gives an ‘unvarnished tale’ of the whole course of his wooing and how he won her. The whole future of Desdemona is built upon this fabric of conceit. One has known her thoroughly when she enters the Council Chamber. The few words that she utters here and there are the full expressions of her soul laden with her traits in every letter. How surcharged with her simplicity, sweetness and innocence are the seemingly meagre lines of, "I hope my noble lord esteems me honest," and "Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?" And one always feels a thrill while acting

Such is Shakespeare's delineation of the lovable character of Desdemona. Her very name has an aroma and a softness about it. It is just like the master-painter, bringing out his subject in clear relief, with a few strokes of his brush here and there, and where we expect them, with no strokes at all, which suggest however far more than the strokes themselves.

Just as it is the art of the dramatist to introduce his heroine in an arresting situation, it is as well the art of the actor to think out his first entrance before the footlights. The first stroke is said to be half the battle, and the actor who thinks out the situation and makes capital out of it, will have always a prepossession in his favour to start with.

Well, the situation yields to such an entrance for Desdemona. To digress a little, but not without purpose, I have seen many actors and actresses impersonate this character both on the normal stage and on the screen, but I have never yet found one who appeared, from the outset, with the fatal handkerchief. She is, as we all know, married and when you read the lines of Othello in Act III, Scene 4,

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and read them not atone but along with Emilia’s in Act III, Scene 3,

the only way of interpreting the character seems to me that Desdemona always has with her the fatal handkerchief, till she loses it in Act III, Scene 3. Else, what is the meaning of her bringing it in that scene just for the purpose of losing it? It looks so artificial and unnatural.

To resume, Iago is asked to fetch Desdemona to the Council-hall. We are not told by any references in the play that she is informed of the cause of her summons. It is but natural for Desdemona to be surprised at first at the scene that confronts her on arrival, though she could have half suspected it. She takes in at a glance the situation and nerves herself up to brave it through. She is tossed about by a wave of conflicting emotions. She must first try to reconcile her old father, with a parallelism and a plea, but the old man, as old men are, is obdurate and will not budge. He will not even allow his only daughter to live with him during Othello's absence when he goes to the Turkish wars. So Desdemona, ‘hitherto his daughter,’ cannot but renounce her father and take to the home of her lord, casting aside all thoughts of her father's roof and kindness, in future. In fact, Brabantio drops out altogether after that scene, save for casual and ‘casualty’ references to him in Act. IV, Scene 2, and Act V, Scene 2. Evidently, he never accepts the olive branch but he will die of grief all the same. So Desdemona takes her last look at her father in that scene, with an anguish known only to daughters, hoping never more to cross her father's threshold and throwing in her lot with Othello for ever. Her heart becomes subdued to the very quality of her lord.

Desdemona's love is of a very peculiar order and Othello's of an equal strangeness. It is not the ordinary passion of a runaway girl, but it is like that of a tendril twining round a big tree in ecstasy and admiration.

She rejoices to hear of Othello's expedition against the Turks and pleads for her following him. She breaks her filial bonds without a second thought and avows in open Council and before her father

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That these incidents were, however, common and not out of the ordinary run of things, is apparent from the fact that the Duke and others take the matter rather very coolly and in fact approve of her choice.

From that time forth, her life becomes entirely subdued to the very passions of her lord. Othello is a Moor after all, changeable in his wills and inclinations, and African jealousy is a by-word for its cruelty. She becomes the unconscious and the hapless victim of the jealous hand of her lord.

I have to say a few words regarding a certain plan in the art of Shakespeare. One always finds in his plays words strewn here and there, either with a double meaning or suggesting the very opposite, and sentences auguring the future, albeit they are used by the characters unconsciously. Such evidence we find in plenty in this play. For instance in Act III, Scene 3, where Desdemona pleads for Cassio describing him as

she is only unconsciously drawing a picture of contrast between Cassio and Iago and it almost seems she even turns to Iago for approval of her correct judgment. We see the first Senator saying in Act I, Scene 3, itself "Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well," and Brabantio, with a "judgment most maimed and imperfect" saying

We see Iago himself expound to Othello, the very keynote of the play, "As men in rage strike those whom they wish best." But more than these, which are but faint, we see Desdemona herself in Act III, Scene 3, sealing her doom in an unwitting speech, "For thy solicitor shall rather die than give thy cause away." How the words uttered with laughter in carelessness turn later into a terrible truth! We have again in Act IV, Scene 2,

and there is the willow song.

The word ‘sheets’ is ominous and a reiteration of that by the actor or actress will add to it. One really need not wait to the last, to learn the end of the play.

The scenes that follow, save the last, I have not much to say upon, for it would be a weary task to take up every line of the play and discourse upon it, as to its potentialities for acting. That depends upon the imagination and virility of the impersonator, to portray the passion displayed in all its intensity and naturalness, But one thing I can say and that is this. The more Othello suspects the fidelity of his wife, the more importunate is Desdemona's pleading for Cassio. The pleading however is in all simplicity and artlessness. It is as vehement as it is sincere. Then only the course and the end of the play will be justified. The strangling of Desdemona is a sacrifice and no murder, and things must lead to it. The vehement pleading clears away the little doubts that lurk in Othello's breast and he hastens without pause to the bedchamber, to ‘put out the light’ of Desdemona for ever.

Let me come to the last scene, which opens with sweet repose and quiet and ends with a terrible tragedy too much to endure. The sleep is symbolic of the purity of Desdemona. There is nothing to perturb her. The transient sleep is soon to be transmuted into the eternal. There is a lingering smile on her lips even while she sleeps, for she sleeps the sleep of the innocent. But Othello enters the scene writhing in jealousy and quivering with passion. Look at the mental juxtaposition of the better and the worser halves. Desdemona has gone to bed having done her night's prayer like a true Christian. Obviously, she has not renounced her religion, as she renounced her father. She wakes up at the silent approach of Othello. It may not be a wild conjecture that her good fairy whispered to her in her sleep that danger is standing ahead of her. "She feels, she fears." Her frame quakes with an unknown tremor. She wakes up with a start and calls "Who is there?" But she finds her lord with folded arms standing at a distance. In the dimness of the night, nay light, she is not able to perceive the surging passions within his breast. The start softens into a sweet address, and an invitation to her bed. How soon should she be disillusioned? She is bewildered and past her wits when she hears

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Her mind is apoplexed and her tongue paralysed when she hears, "I would not kill thy soul." She does not find her tongue easily to exclaim, "Talk you of killing?" She stumbles and stammers through it, but she realises her situation and the helplessness of her lot. She becomes alive to the fierceness of Othello and his unrelenting character. Yet the dying woman will clutch at a straw. She tries to plead and ask for the cause. There are no witnesses to prove her innocence. She appeals to Heaven and the heavenly powers. The heavens do not come down to us on such occasions. She is denied even the last wish of a condemned soul, that of saying her last prayer. She is smothered to death when she ought to be smothered with kisses.

Life is often an irony and oft a sacrifice. It has been so with Desdemona. But she is unblemished even in her death-bed. She will not quit this world with the sin of even an unkindly thought in her mind. She dies a willing and a most peaceful death. The innocents are not afraid of it. Her only prayer, that was hushed ere it was born, was that posterity should judge of her rightly, and that her lord should realise at some time or other that she was innocent. She would not betray her lord even then but say "Nobody, I myself," and take the crime upon herself. Such is her glorious end. Her last lines, "Nobody, I myself, farewell, commend me to my kind lord, Oh, farewell," as all last words are, are tremendous in their import and significance. The whole thing seems to be addressed to Emilia, as the lines are printed, generally interpreted, and acted. But to me, they are capable of greater refinement and interpretation. Her final leave-taking must be with her lord, and in such a way as to bring home to him her spotlessness. He must reflect upon this at some later time and chafe himself for his rash act. So, as she is addressing Emilia, with a death-like paleness and stare, "Nobody, I myself, farewell,–commend me to . . ." her eyes turn round and she beholds Othello standing before her, immaculate and implacable. She puts out her hands in pathetic appeal and mumbles out to him, "My kind lord," intending to convey to him his ‘unkindness’ and that he has not after all proceeded upon just grounds, as was his vain boast, and with a choke and a cry she sinks into her bed, with her last. "Oh, farewell," to her lord, a lifeless figure pale as her smock, and cold as her chastity, reminding her lord of his own beautiful sentiment, sometime ago expressed in

1 The writer is a talented South Indian actor, whose interpretation of Shakespeare are of great interest.–The Editor

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