It’s been a while, but actor Denzel Washington — a two-time Academy Award winner and Tony Award winner — is returning to Broadway this month in the starring role of William Shakespeare’s “Othello” at the Barrymore Theatre.
The powerful cast of “Othello” includes Tony Award nominee and Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal portraying “Iago,” and the classic drama of deception and betrayal is being directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon.
Previews begin on Feb. 24. Following the previews, the opening night performance for “Othello” will be on March 23, and it will play a limited 15-week engagement through June 8.
Taking the Barrymore Theatre stage with Washington and Gyllenhaal will be Molly Osborne as Desdemona, Tony Award winner Andrew Burnap as Cassio, Anthony Michael Lopez as Roderigo, Daniel Pearce as Brabantio, Kimber Elayne Sprawl as Emilia, Neal Bledsoe as the Duke of Venice, Julee Cerda as Bianca, Ezra Knight as Montano, Gene Gillette as Gratiano, and Rob Heaps as Ludovico.
Washington is no stranger to the New York stage, first coming to Broadway in 1988. That year, he starred in the comedy “Checkmates,” written by prolific Black playwright Ron Milner and directed by New Federal Theater founder Woodie King Jr. The play also starred actor Paul Winfield. In 2005, Washington returned to Broadway as Marcus Brutus in the Shakespeare tragedy “Julius Caesar.”
Washington was back on Broadway in 2010 as Troy Maxson in the revival of award-winning playwright August Wison’s drama “Fences.” And in 2014, he portrayed Walter Lee Younger in the revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s acclaimed drama “A Raisin in the Sun.”
Washington’s portrayal of Othello adds him to a collection of Black actors who have performed the theatrical role, which was traditionally portrayed by whites only for generations.
Shakespeare’s original 1603 drama — titled “The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice” — did not specify the lead character’s race, although the term Moor was used to describe someone dark-skinned of African, Middle Eastern or Spanish origin. For centuries, the role was played by white actors who darkened their skin with makeup to play Othello.
However, a breakthrough in the casting of the Othello role took place 200 years ago. In 1824, at 17 years of age, New York City-born Black actor Ira Aldridge traveled to England to further the acting career he started at the African Grove Theatre in Manhattan. Founded by free West Indian actor and playwright William Alexander Brown, the pioneering African Grove Theatre is reportedly where Aldridge was first exposed to the works of Shakespeare.
In England, Aldridge first portrayed the Moor of Venice in 1825 at a small London theater. In 1833, he replaced ailing prominent British actor Edmund Kean in the Othello lead role in a major production at the Covent Garden Theatre in London’s prestigious West End theater district. Audiences raved about the performance, but racist backlash from newspaper critics caused the premature cancellation of the production after just two days.
Later, the actor did gain great fame in Europe by performing other Shakespearen roles, becoming Britain’s first Black theater manager, and publicly supporting the abolition of slavery in Britain.
On Broadway, about 100 years later, dynamic bass-baritone actor Paul Robeson played Othello in 1943 and 1944 — the first Black person in America to be cast in the racially controversial role. During its record-breaking run for a Shakespeare play, the Shubert Theatre production included Robeson and his white co-star Uta Hagen engaging in the first interracial kiss in Broadway history.
In 1982 at the Winter Garden Theatre, it was James Earl Jones’ turn to play Othello in a production starring Christopher Plummer as Iago.
