Professor David Peimer
Image of the Arab in Shakespeare
Summary
While Shakespeare’s portrayal of Shylock is well known, this talk explores how he depicted Arab characters (Moors), like Othello in “Othello”, Aaron in “Titus Andronicus” and Caliban in “The Tempest.”
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
Yes, I agree. This is a great question, Jan. And there’s a lot of debate, because he’s, you know, the Moor, they’re called the Moor all the time, Aaron and Othello. And that would’ve been seen as the Arab character from North Africa, particularly Morocco, and of all, you know, as I’ve explained here. It might’ve been seen with darker skin, a blacker Moor, but blacker Moor also would mean deceitful, lying, deceptive kind of person, not only necessarily color of skin. Caliban I purposely left out, because Caliban is more a strange creature, half human, half animal, and meant to be physically acted like that. So Caliban is part of a, let’s call it semi, a completely other world. ‘Cause let’s go back the end of the 1500s, they’re discovering new worlds, countries, animals, creatures all over the globe, you know, and mixing the idea of exotic image creature, you know, with human. So Caliban, I think, would be more there, or he might be closer to Black Africa. But this is North Africa, which would’ve been Moor, I think, Moor specifically. And to you, I’ve used the contemporary word “Arab,” but that’s why the word would’ve been Moor, it was in both these play I’ve looked at today. But great question. And it’s a debate, absolutely.
Ah, great question. No. All that’s known is that he travelled between London and Stratford, probably three-day horse ride, three, four-day horse ride, give or take. All that we know is that. But because London at the time, end of the 1500s, 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. So this is 100 years later. They would’ve … Discoveries of all new worlds, islands, places, creatures, cultures, foods, spices, everything. So peoples from all over the world at the time would’ve been brought by pirates, smugglers, the navy, the merchants, through London perhaps. And I can imagine taverns, meeting here, meeting there, slave, not a slave. And the other kind of person would’ve been those who were part of the court of Queen Elizabeth. That’s why I wanted to show the picture of that one guy who was the prime Arab character or Moor, whichever, in Shakespeare’s time, to use his word, Shakespeare’s word. He was very well known as part of Queen Elizabeth’s court, as an important ambassador.
Great questions. I think, without a doubt. I mean, you know, if we can imagine, these plays are 500 years old. I mean, it’s extraordinary. A 500-year-old play? Some of the ancient Greek plays, two and a half thousand years old. And I think definitely, you know, we live in a cultural political climate. That’s why I wanted to focus on the one production of Nick Hytner, ‘cause he did focus primarily on the idea of jealousy, trust, how that works, getting promotion, not getting promotion. And he focused less on the racial aspect, which I think is good, 'cause it’s implicit in the play, 'cause of the words used in the play. You don’t have to hit the audience over the head. So I agree, Monty. I think there are ways of doing it. These plays are rich enough to choose what you want to focus on more and leave it subtle. The audience picks it up covertly.