‘Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves! Look to your house, your daughter and your bags! Thieves! thieves!’ From its very inception, Othello is structured by gender; a woman is a piece of property, a commodity, something that can be branded with a price tag, something that can be owned, and something that can be readily sold (or in this case, stolen). Reading over Iago’s lines, you may even pay no notice towards his mention of Desdemona, ‘your daughter’, so barricaded with mentions of other possessions that she becomes a commonplace possession herself. Yet, in the ADC’s upcoming production of Othello, Desdemona will become a son and husband to an ambitious, charismatic, female general, Othello.

Gender-swapped Shakespeare has a long and illustrious history in the world of theatre. Male actors have played feminine roles since the 16th century, and even on the modern stage this tradition has been replicated, with the Globe Theatre staging all-male productions of Anthony and Cleopatra and Twelfth Night. More recently, the Donmar Warehouse reversed the tradition with woman-only performances of Henry IV and Julius Caesar. Yet productions in which characters literally and theatrically swap gender are few and far between; Helen Mirren donned the role of Prospera in Julie Taymor’s cinematic rendition of The Tempest, and the ludicrous Polonius became the ludicrous Polonia in Sarah Frankcom’s staging of Hamlet at the Manchester Royal Exchange. Evidently, there is a fear of pulling away from convention, of potentially upsetting the dynamics of relationships that rely on gender, and of diluting the Elizabethan (and 21st century) prejudice towards women that helps to frame many a Shakespearean plot.

Yet, a play like Othello whose very core is prejudice, stereotype, and oppression, would rather heavily benefit from a gender-swapped production. By giving Othello (or Othella) a second X chromosome, gender becomes as much a part of Othello’s identity as her race is, fuelling the issues – insecurity, self-doubt, jealousy – that drive the plot. Swapping Othello’s gender does not cloud and smother the original presentation of gender, but amplifies it; Othello is now evaluated by her gender as well as the colour of her skin, echoing the valuation of Desdemona as a female in the original text. 

Even then, gender-swapping pushes the play into the 21st century, or rather more realistically plays what the female character is capable of. Instead of a woman falling into two distinct camps – the virtuous or the venereal – they become complex, psychological characters, both ambitious and vulnerable, both cunning and fallible. The dynamic between Othello and Iago, one based upon sexual politics and jealousy, also allows for women to be seen as sexual beings, lusting after Desdemona, raging with a heady mix of passion and violence, and driven to licentious revenge. As Emilia states, ‘have not we affections, desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?’

A gender-swapped Othello is an amplification of the play, rather than a pretentious attempt at novelty and edginess. Not only does it entail interesting, lead female performances (the absence of which still needs to be addressed in the theatrical sphere), yet also pushes to the fore the multifaceted nature of both genders; Othello is discriminated by her race and her role as a female in power in a traditionally masculine realm, Iago is both an intelligent woman and a sadistic one, whilst Desdemona is proof of the existence of male vulnerability in a world that places such unstrained emphasis on what is defined as masculinity and manhood. A gender-swapped Othello is a production that pushes equality, augmenting the inequality suffered by its characters on the stage, and making the oppression even more palpable to the watchers in the audience, training their eyes on a proud, skilled, tragically isolated, black, female Othello.