Description

In February 1835, the chilly New Orleans roads are alight with masked Mardigras revelers whilst the National Theater’s impresario, Lorenzo Belaggio, provides an impressive however questionable operatic version of Othello to city. But it’s pitch black inside the street where free person of colour Benjamin Jan learns a slurred sound, spies the display of the blade, and is herself injured as he saves Belaggio from the bad assault. Might opposition for audiences—or for Belagio’s affections—provoke such chaotic skulduggery? Or is Shakespeare’s heartbreaking story, using its vision of the dark man’s enthusiasm to get a bright elegance, one which some Creole citizen—or National parvenu—would do something to keep off the point?