Othello, ou le More de Venise, tragédie par le citoyen Ducis: Représentée, pour la première fois à Paris; sur le Théâtre de la République, le lundi 26 novembre 1792, l'an premier de la République
Authors of source text
Contributions
- Jean-François Ducis
- translator
- Claude-François Maradan
- publisher
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- Othello ou le More de Venise, Tragédie par le citoyen Ducis: Représentée, pour la première fois à Paris; sur le Théâtre de la République, le lundi 26 novembre 1792, l'an premier de la République translation
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- Othello, ou le More de Venise, tragédie par le citoyen Ducis: Représentée, pour la première fois à Paris; sur le Théâtre de la République, le lundi 26 novembre 1792, l'an premier de la République paratext
Notes
The French-language adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello by Jean-François Ducis was first performed at the Théâtre de la République in Paris in 1792, with the celebrated actor François-Joseph Talma in the titular role. Ducis adapted the play based on two French-language translations available to him, those of Pierre Antoine de la Place (1745) and Pierre Letourneur (1776). The adaptation follows neo-classical conventions. The relationship between Hédelmône (Desdemona) and her father, Odalbert, is emphasised, and the hateful Pézare (Iago) is granted only a minimal role. The death of Hédelmône was the subject of such controversy that Ducis included an alternative version of the final scene with a happy ending, which seems to have been used in revivals of 1794, 1795 and 1796.
The play was printed and revived in October 1793 during the trial of the Girondin deputies, possibly as "part of a campaign by Talma and the Théâtre de la République to demonstrate their revolutionary credentials" (Lucy Munro "Shakespeare and Drama" in The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts, ed. by Mark Thorton Burnett et al. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), p. 248. Talma had been implicated in the proceedings.
Ducis sent a copy of the newly printed play to Hérault de Séchelles, then president of the National Convention, with the following note: "Reçevez, mon illustrate con-citoyen, le sans-culotte Othello. Ce bon et fier African n'a point déplu à nos compatriots. On le donne aujourd'hui, décade, et j'espère que Talma continuera à le fair rugir comme le lion du désert. Je vous embrasse en homme républicain" (Ducis, Lettres, ed. by Paul Albert, p. liv).
"The play's contemporary application - set in a republic which owes its stability to a hero who is not only a sans-culotte but also an African, a man who strikes a blow against social and racial prejudice and demands equality on the grounds not of parentage or race, but worth - is anything but obscure" (John Golder, Shakespeare for the Age of Reason: The Earliest Stage Adaptations of Jean François Ducis, 1769-1792 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1992), p. 265.
Modern critical edition by Cristopher Smith (University of Exeter Press, 1991).