After the first 24 hours back on methotrexate, my energy was a little low but I was up enough to go to a play. The hubs and I went to Othello the Remix created, written and performed by the Q Brothers. And I am glad we did.
The Q Brothers take Shakespeare and urbanize it by setting much of it to rap music. Sometime they keep his language and sometimes they use the story and write their own. With Othello, they set the story within hip hip culture using a combination of Shakespeare’s language and their own. Othello is an insanely popular rapper who worked his way up the ranks, Iago a member of his crew and Cassio the new “pretty boy” with a huge jump start to his career displacing Iago for the second slot. And the story goes the way we know it to from there.
Going to see Q Brothers shows, I am always excited by how diverse the audience is both in age and race. They attract an audience all their own to Shakespeare. And the people are always jazzed, sometimes clapping or bobbing along with the beat. I love this kind of energy in the theater, regardless of the criticisms I may have of the show (like the fact that no actor played Desdemona-she was an imagined/off stage character and recorded voice on a sound cue which is pretty problematic in Othello, especially the death scene). They also really engage and play well to a youth audience in a way that “straight” Shakespeare often does not.
Despite my Desdemona issue, it was a fun and satisfying new take on Othello that I’m excited has extended so many times!
year of fun 