Cassio

Oh wait, there's this man called Iago.

Ever since Othello passed him over for a promotion in favour of Michael Cassio, Iago has plotted how to get revenge on Othello and Cassio.

Did I miss anything?

No, I don't think so.

Happy ending.

Actually, Iago sets his plan in motion.

Iago gets Cassio, the man who took Iago's job as lieutenant.

Nice and drunk and violent.

Yeah.

And then when you have Cassio also be Black, that also takes the racial insecurity out of Othello's jealousy.

Because it's not that my wife is cheating on me with a white guy, a white guy who she probably should have been with instead of me if she had listened to her parent, originally father, in this case mother, but... it's a oh no she's leaving me for another black guy or cheating on me with another black guy that kind of just takes the racial element out of the central conflict so we've taken it out of the world and the central conflict and i feel like othello is just suddenly no longer about race but if it's not about race what is it about instead so i was chewing on this and trying to write a review and i was like i don't know what to say about this and like you know i feel like as a white guy is it my place to make this critique and i i didn't know what to do about it but i did know that i was coordinating a feature for stratford about it and the original pitch was just like yes let's interview andre and kristin as the you know the lead couple in this but as i'm thinking about this i'm like well Also, Andre got a big feature on the Globe and Mail.

So I'm like, OK, do we need to interview Andre again? I like Andre, but maybe we can do something a little more interesting.

Thank you.

Act 3, Scene 3 begins with the entrance of Desdemona, Cassio, and Emilia.

And their entrance is an exit from Othello's house.

Because remember in Act 3, Scene 1, Cassio came to speak with Desdemona.

Emilia showed him into the house so that he could make his case.

Even though he was assured all will be well, he still wanted to talk to her.

And then Othello went out to inspect some walls or military stuff.

And he went away.

Episode 10 will look at the central section, lines 90 to 257. by the end of which Othello is firmly on the road to the eventual horror, and episode 11, the last three sections, up to the end of the scene.

Act 3, scene 3, opens quietly, with Desdemona's reassurance to Cassio that she will do all my abilities on thy behalf.

She continues to reiterate that she will do everything she can to help Cassio get his job back, When he says that he is concerned that the general will forget his love and service, she tells him not to doubt, meaning fear that.

If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it to the last article.

My lord shall never rest.

And that I'll intermingle everything he does with Cassio's suit.

It's worth asking why she says this.

It would all make sense were Cassio her own brother, but she says she is willing to go to an extreme for someone of little personal significance, paralleling Othello's extreme overreaction in banishing him totally in the first place.

At the end of last week's rather caustic double episode, we had survived Iago and Desdemona's unpleasant volley of word games and comments about women and wives.

Cassio and Desdemona are stepping aside, presumably eager to move on from Iago's sour commentary.

But as they do so, moving just slightly out of the spotlight, he narrates their actions for us.

in an aside to us he says he takes her by the palm i well said whisper with as little a web as this will i ensnare as great a fly as cassio ay smile upon her do i will jive thee in thine own courtesies oh you say true tis so indeed If such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now, again, you are most apt to play the sir in.

Very good, well kissed, an excellent courtesy.

To so, indeed, yet again your fingers to your lips, would they were clister pipes for your sake.

remember that iago told us earlier in the play that he for mere suspicion that othello had slept with his wife will do as if for certainty and now here he gives us more of a look at how he operates He sees Cassio taking Desdemona by the palm and whispering to her, well said, whisper, he says, somewhere between egging him on and judging his behaviour.

Then to us he confirms his malice.

The final part of Act 2, Scene 3 echoes Iago's encounters with Rodrigo.

Like them, it is in lower order prose, as he plays best friend to Cassio.

The latter is distressed by the loss of his reputation.

In other words, what others think or know of him, as he is caught up in a situation he does not understand.

Iago asks, what had he done to you? And Cassio can only reply, I know not.

echoing what Iago has already said in soliloquy.

Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains, that we should with joy, pleasance, revel and applause transform ourselves into beasts.

He has become, he says, with the rapidity that distinguishes the events of this play and will be most clearly seen in Othello himself, a sensible man, by and by a fool and presently a beast.

This is a busy scene, preparing us for the central one of the play, act three, scene three, which comes just a few minutes acting time away.

Speeded up time is one of the play's distinguishing features, and we see that here too in Cassio's extremely rapid descent into drunkenness and subsequent instant dismissal.

This scene ends with Iago's words about speeding up time.

Aye, that's the way.

Dull not device by coldness and delay.

Back to the beginning.

It opens with Othello's instruction to Cassio to make sure everything is orderly.

After he is gone, Iago starts to tempt Cassio to drink.

As promised, this is a slightly longer episode in which we meet Emilia and hear a little more from her husband, Iago, all while we wait for news of the incoming ship that seems to have survived the wild weather.

As we left things last time, Cassio had sent the gentleman away to see for the news.

Next, he turns to Iago and says, "Good ancient, you are welcome." This could be a little dig since Cassio now outranks Iago, but the drama is probably better served if Cassio means nothing but appropriate respect by this, naming an officer by his rank.

This leaves things open for Iago to interpret it as a put down.

But what Cassio does next is far more of a surprise.

He turns to Emilia, Iago's wife, and says, "Welcome, mistress.

Let it not gall your patience, good Iago, that I extend my manners.

Desdemona, hopefully on behalf of all of us, is quick to put him down.