Unpinning Desdemona

• Published in: Shakespeare quarterly 2007-12, Vol.58 (4), p.487-508
• Main Author: Walen, Denise A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acting; British & Irish literature; Drama; Dresses; English literature; History; Libraries; Literary criticism; Murders & murder attempts; Musical intervals; Promptbooks; Scripts; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Singing; Theater; Theater companies
• ISSN: 0037-3222; 1538-3555; 1538-3555
• DOI: 10.1353/shq.2007.0058

Most important here, McMillin believed that 4.3 was reduced for Q, not expanded for F; he hypothesized that Q reflects playhouse cuts made to affect the pace.5 He noted that the cuts occur primarily in the fourth and fifth acts, with half of all missing lines in Q coming from the roles of Desdemona and Emilia, which perhaps indicates that the play was lagging near the end, that the boy actors proved uninteresting, or, finally, that someone decided simply to excise material that failed to advance the plot.6 I would argue that, in the case of 4.3, the F version of Othello offers more than a longer text that someone decided to cut; as McMillin implies, it also requires notably different staging. Shakespeare, or the company, excised the singing and the long speech in favor of the quicker, snappier dialogue in order to move the action into the break at a brisk clip, and in doing so produced the version that became Q. Later generations had little opportunity to experience the scene in its original state and lost sight of its effect; they began to find it sentimental, even mawkish (Figures 4-7), and it was further cut until it disappeared from production.