CSI for Desdemona: a play about a handkerchief

Basic Intro

• Desdemona: a play about a handkerchief
• Produced by Circle Repertory Company in NYC on July 23, 1993 and in November of 1993
• Directed by Gloria Muzio
• Emilia played by Fran Brill, Desdemona played by J. Smith-Cameron, Bianca played by Cherry Jones
• Done in thirty cinematic takes
• Written as a tribute or “rip-off” to the infamous play Shakespeare the Sadist by Wolfgang Bauer

• Paula Vogel (sources: the American Theatre Wing, The New York Times)
• Born in Washington D.C. in 1951
• Daughter of the late Phyllis R. Vogel and Donald S. Vogel
• Her father was a publicist in Washington
• In memory of Paula Vogel’s brother, Mr. Vogel founded the Carl Vogel Center in Washington: a provider of treatment, nutrition, and counseling for people with H.I.V. and AIDS
• Her mother was a secretary at the Postal Service Training and Development Center in Bethesda, Md

• Married to Anne Fausto-Sterling

• Playwright since the late 1970s

• Gained prominence with her AIDS-related seriocomedy The Baltimore Waltz, the play won the Obie award for Best Play in 1992

• Best known for the play How I Learned to Drive (1997) which won the Pulitzer Prize, this play examines the impact of child sexual abuse and incest

• Developed a nationally recognized center for educational theatre while leading the graduate playwriting program at Brown University

• Is currently the adjunct professor and the Chair of the playwriting department at Yale School of Drama, and the Playwright-in-Residence at Yale Repertory Theatre

• Other notable plays: The Oldest Profession (1981), And Baby Makes Seven (1984), Hot N’ Throbbing (1994), The Mineola Twins (1996), and The Long Christmas Ride Home (2006)

Context

• BDSM
• Erotic practices involving dominance and submission, role-playing, and restraint
• The term BDSM originated in the late 1960s, from a combination of D&S (Dominance and Submission) with S&M (Sadism and Masochism)
• The origin of the practice is unknown
• Fille de chambre
• French
• A woman who is employed to clean bedrooms and bathrooms, a chambermaid, a housemaid

Intertexts

• Shakespeare the Sadist by Wolfgang Bauer: German play (Frauen und Film) about a group of slackers, with a character named Shakespeare that acts in a disturbing version of a porn film where he shouts degrading abusive language about women (much like someone we know…) and eventually saws off the girls head, only for her to reappear a minute later.
• The Bible: An obvious one.
• “I believe in the Blessed Virgin, I do, and the Holy Fathers and the Sacraments of the Church” (Emilia, Scene 10, page 18)
• Talk of Rosary beads
• Of course, Othello.
• However, Desdemona is as promiscuous in this play as Iago says she is in Othello (in Desdemona, a play about a handkerchief she has relations with everyone except Cassio)

Subtexts

• “Every play I write is a discourse about power, relationships, and gender” –Vogel (source: theatremania.com)
• Trust
• Deception
• Performance
• Entertainment
• “What else have I got for amusement’s sake…” (Desdemona, Scene 23)
• Acting Falsely
• “I keep her in line with the prospect of eventual advancement, but she’s much too unsuitable for that.” (Desdemona, Scene 15)
• Iago lies to Emilia saying he had guard duty on Tuesday night, but he was at the brothel, doing Desdemona in  the dark.
• Desdemona purchases fake virginal blood for her bedsheets so it won’t be found out that she was not a virgin on her wedding night. Even though she slept with the entire encampment, with the exception of Cassio.
• Sexual Performance
• “There was one man who … didn’t last very long.” (Desdemona, Scene 26)
• “Why must you be knowin’ every man’s size?!” (Emilia, Scene 20)
• The acting/performance of prostitutes and Desdemona during BDSM
• Commitment
• Marriage
• “When I was married in the Church…” (Emilia, Scene 27)
• “All women want t’get a smug, it’s what we’re made for, ain’t it?” (Bianca, Scene 23)
• Servitude
• (Scene 15) “Still. she’s devoted and that makes up for all the rest.”
• Emilia only truly becomes loyal when she finds out her husband is disloyal
• Promise/ Word of honor
• “She’ll believe me because...I’ll give her...I’ll give her...my word of honor. (Desdemona, Scene 20)
• “‘Coz a gen’l’men don’t lie to a bird...Besides, m’lord Vassio gi’me a “token o’ ‘is es-teem”- (Bianca, Scene 23)
• Othello and Desdemona
• The fact Othello smells her sheet for traces of a lover and trails her in her garden escapades to see if she’s meeting anyone.
• “And wouldn’t he be mad if he’d paid for what he got for free at home!!” (Desdemona, Scene 21)
• “She’s gullin’ that ass of a husband who’s so taken with her” (Emilia on Desdemona, Scene 13)
• She’s a cuckold.
• Emilia and Desdemona
• Trust here could have saved them from their deaths
• Despite Emilia’s pleas for a promotion for either/ both her and her husband, Desdemona teases her with doing so but holds out on actually going through with it.
• “Should you have “accidentally” taken it- not that I’m suggesting theft in the slightest…” (Desdemona to Emilia, Scene 6)
• Bianca and Desdemona
• Broken by the handkerchief
• The whole relationship is based on a phase of Desdemona’s, she just wants excitement in her life
• The fight scene between Desdemona and Bianca with the horse-pick and wine bottle.
• Race
• “Well the room’s bleeding black- blacker than he is!” (Bianca, Scene 21)
• “He’s as jealous as he’s black.” (Emilia, Scene 13)
• Class
• Emilia’s view that Desdemona should not be associating herself with Bianca because of their social status difference
• “Women can only do that [rise] through their mates….long for the day you make me a lieutenant’s widow!” (Emilia, Scene 6)
• Women
• Solidarity
• “Men only see each other in their eyes.” (Emilia, Scene 26)
• “Woman to woman.” (Desdemona, Scene 23)
• “There’s no such thing as friendship between women.” (Emilia, Scene 13)
• Abusive Relationships
• Physical
• Othello hits Desdemona off screen at the end of Scene 5.
• Verbal
• “Oh m’lady, you know how easy it is to be seduced by a husband’s soft word, when it’s the like of angry words he pours down upon your head-...” (Emilia, Scene 27)
• Emotional
• [See deception.]
• Health
• “You’ll be bleedin’ on the wrong time of the month! (Emilia, Scene 20)
• “I’ll say you’re ill- with woman sickness.” (Emilia, Scene 27)
• “He’s corroded her womb from inside out…” (Desdemona, Scene 14)
• Money vs. Love
• “Men earn their money like Horses and spends it like Asses” (Emilia, Scene 21)
• Emilia thinks the only way women can rise socially is through the status of their husbands (Scene 6)
• “How large now the world for so small a vice, eh Mealy?” (Desdemona. Scene 21)
• “I’m- I’m not to be tempted, Miss Desdemona.” (Emilia, Scene 21)
• Exoticism/ Foreignness
• Purdah
• Female seclusion: both physically separated from men and concealing of the women’s bodies
• Desdemona resorts to the Brothel to escape her repression through seclusion
• “Seed from a thousand lands...with genealogies spread from all over the globe….oh how I travel!” (Desdemona, Scene 11)
• “A man of a different color. From another world and planet.” (Desdemona, Scene 11)
• Religion
• See Bible intertext
• Emilia sees prayer as the best way to deal with unhappiness in a marriage (Scene 10)
• Intimacy
• Three Scene of Physical Contact
• Emilia is comforted by Desdemona when she finds out that Iago was sexually unfaithful to her
• Emilia brushes Desdemona’s hair the night before we know they will both die
• Bianca and the beating scene with Desdemona...enough said.
• Lack of intimate contact, though lots of sex, no meaning behind it.