Othello

Rating:
Summary: Shake's Alive!
Review: "Othello" is one of my favorite Shakespearean plays, but even the best of things could use a little updating once in a while. That's why I was so excited when I found out about the comic book version. It is the play, the whole play, and nothing but the play, made easier for the layman to understand with interesting contemporary art.

Rating:
Summary: awful
Review: I have only read a few of Shakepeare's books (Romeo and Juliet; Macbeth; King Lear; Much Ado About Nothing and Otherllo) but Othello is strikingly pathetic; ridiculously tepid, and on top of all; totally unbelievable. I don't get where people get the notion from that Othello is realistic and "universal," maybe if you have never read any book or lived inside a box your whole life. I actually laughed numerous times when the play was supposed to be serious - the book is filled with bathos.

Iago tells a slue of "facts" to Othello suggesting Desdemona has cheated on him with Cassio, and Othello believes all of it at the drop of a dime. He doesn't go to investigate or question Desdemona, it just becomes fact. The book also is quite similar to a lot of Shakespeare's stuff; myriad relationships between minor characters that are in fact pointless (cassio and bianaca; roderigo and Iago, no point), the death of most of the characters (it's cool but predictable, and Desdemona's death is a fine example of anticlimax). In fact I didn't care about most of the characters. Really, it is more junk highschools overrate. King Lear is infinitely better; with a better plot, story and importantly characters.

Rating:
Summary: a great tragedy
Review: Othello is the first Shakespeare play I've read without it being assigned by a professor and I can truly say it was very rewarding. The problems of betrayal and racism in the play speak to the problems we are still seeing in the world today. Othello seems like such a genuine character, though he is pushed too far by his passions. If you were frustrated by Hamlet and his cowardly indecisiveness, you will be refreshed by Othello. The play is easy to read (as far as Shakespeare is concerned) and it is resonant of today's world. This is a play that encourages me to read more of Shakespeare's plays.