LiterOthello

That is Patty...or me I guess.

First of all, to my faithful readers who have been checking back on a semi regular basis...WELL DONE! YOU'RE NOW FINALLY REWARDED WITH A NEW BLOG!!!Yes, my last post was on September, 30th and today is well... November 15/16 depending on when I publish this, at any rate that is a month and a half of waiting. Of course, I must defend myself and explain why I was too busy to grace you with some form of bad pun, and mildly amusing thoughts (for this is Mild Musings after all!). I've been involved in my college's production of Grease as Patty Simcox, irritating and well-meaning cheerleader. This ate up most of my time, and the rest was devoured by Grease tech work. Making costumes, painting stuff, making more costumes, staying up super late to paint more stuff, this equation lead to no blog for a long time. "But wait!" you may be saying to yourself, "didn't you have some form of mid-semester break in there?" To you folks I say, "Shut up, no one asked you." Also, I didn't want to provide less than awesomeness for you and it wasn't until an epiphany hit me, that I was prepared to give you a great blog. So for your enjoyment I present a Kersti's Cards production, in collaboration with Designs by K, and The Singing Chef Restaurant: LiterOthello.

     We open on two men shouting in the street at night. The more interesting man is named Iago and he shoves the rather stupid Roderigo out into the open, whilst hiding behind something and starts shouting things at the window like: "Your daughter ran away, and is making the beast with two backs with that black guy that was hanging around here!Dude wake up!Where's your daughter at? Oh, that's right, she ran off with the Moor!!!Who may not actually be from Morocco! It's just an old, more than slightly racist term for black people during the Renaissance!!!!" At which point the old man goes ballistic and starts shouting at Roderigo something like, "You're mother made the beast with two backs with me! And you're less than pleasant smelling!" Thus ends the nocturnal exchange between these men. At any rate, Brabanzio is notified that his daughter is no longer with him, but with Othello the Moor of Venice. (If this were a movie dramatic music would be playing and we would see aerial shots of Venice as actors names go floating on the screen, thankfully you're just reading this and it's much shorter than most Shakespeare movies).

Yep, that's who she picked!

     Then we get to the court room and Brabanzio is screaming about his daughter being stolen by a Moor. Honestly, I think he's just being racist but the dude did just lose his daughter so maybe cut him some slack. So Brabanzio is just going on and on about injustice and the Moor and getting his daughter back, and the judges side with him and say if he can prove his daughter wants to come back, they'll make it happen captain. Conveniently, at this moment his daughter Desdemona and her new husband Othello waltz into the courtroom. All the judges quietly utter an "Oh crap!", since they said the Moor could be killed if Desdemona didn't really want to be married to him. This is a problem because Othello is a war general and the Venicians want to go to war with Turkey and they need his help. At any rate, Brabanzio runs up to his daughter and asks her who she loves more. In a very eloquent way Desdemona says, "This dude!" whilst pointing at Othello...the Moor. Brabanzio says something along the lines of, "Good thing I don't have any more children, or else I'd chain them up and keep them at home. You know, since you eloped in the middle of the night and all." Then Othello has to make ready to leave since he only has an hour before they go to battle.

Sheer Iago Awesomeness

     Sometime later they win against the Turks and Othello is finally able to spend a little...um....quality time with Desdemona. At this point Iago comes up and tells the audience, "Othello promoted Cassio over me!!!Me!!!And I'm super awesome and would be such a better officer than Cassio!So I'm going to ruin everyone's lives and then I'll be happy!" He starts to plant a seed in Othello's mind, and it has super graphic images of Cassio doing things to Desdemona "betwixt the sheets". Now Iago is pissed that Cassio got promoted over him, but he also has heard that Othello has "done his (Iago's) office with his wife". Meaning Othello supposedly slept with Iago's wife, something that is almost certainly untrue. Iago even knows this, but he just really wants to mess everything up so he goes about his plan to ruin everything.

Othello and Desdemona

     Othello and Desdemona are happily in love and married and feeding each other chocolate covered strawberries and listening to Michael Buble, but somehow Iago gets it into Othello's head that Desdemona has been sleeping with Cassio. Desdemona is NOT sleeping with Cassio and is way too sweet and loyal to ever even THINK of doing anything like that. Iago still gets under Othello's skin and uses all kinds of word play and psychology to twist Othello's mind around his wife's betrayal. Iago works it so that everything points toward Desdemona's guilt, and he is way sneaky about it. His wife Emilia is Desdemona's servant, and he keeps telling her to get this handkerchief away from Desdemona. Othello gave her that handkerchief as a present, and it's very special because he received it from his mother. Emilia gets the handkerchief away from Desdemona and gives it to Iago, who ends up getting it to Cassio, who is seen with it by Othello.

Sometimes, pillows help you sleep forever

     At this point Othello is in a constant state of agony. His mind is torturing him with images of his wife cheating on him with his best friend, and he things that Iago is his only friend. Othello cannot see the horrible person Iago is, and he keeps listening to him. Finally Othello gets so worked up, he feels his only solution is to kill Desdemona. How this makes sense, I don't know but he has to kill her to make it all better. Desdemona has no idea what the flip is happening and so when Othello comes to bed at night she's all "Oh, coming to bed my Lord? Missed you!" And this point he starts letting her know his full mind and says something about killing. Desdemona picks up on this as says, "Whoa what? Talk ye of killing my lord? Certainly not me!" And then Othello says he won't scar her flesh or shed her blood, but he does pick up a pillow. She tries to convince him that she has never been unfaithful, but it's hard to prove your point with a pillow smothering you and all. Desdemona lays dead on the bed (with a pillow o-er her head), and Othello has a quiet brain at last. 

What about him looks trustworthy!Not the chin beard, no sir.

    While Othello is standing over his wife's body, basically everyone in the entire play runs in. Desdemona's cousin is there, Iago is brought in, Emilia waltzes in, and of course the awesomely handsome Cassio sashays on in. Everyone does a double take and starts explaining. You see, Iago has confessed everything and is thrown on the floor. This is a big mistake because Iago is a very desperate man at this point. He grabs his wife as a hostage and ends up slitting her throat. She wants to die on the bed next to her mistress, so that whole scene happens. Then Othello stabs Iago (after hearing the story), and then kills himself. He drags his bleeding body up onto the bed and dies at Desdemona's feet. Then Iago drags himself over (not wanting to be left out) and dies at his wife's feet. So at the end, there are 4 dead bodies on a bed, some super confused bystanders, and a whole lot of puffy pants going on. Moral of the story, don't listen to guys named Iago...I mean even Aladdin taught us that.