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Paula Vogel’s Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief was originally produced in
association with Circle Repertory Company by Bay Street Theatre Festival, Sag
Harbor, Long Island, New York, in July 1993. It was written in 1979, long before
Vogel received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for How I Learned to Drive. According to “Saving
Desdemona and/or Ourselves,” an essay by Marianne Novy in her book Transforming
Shakespeare, “Vogel’s (play) is more of a critique of Shakespeare’s Desdemona’s marital
fidelity and of idealizations of this trait in women” (74).
In Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief, Paula Vogel’s use of a condensed
classic tale coupled with succinct scenes and rapid dialogue moves the action forward
at a wonderful breathtaking pace, taking the reader on a rollercoaster ride through
Desdemona’s life. According to Vogel, Desdemona was written as a “tribute (i.e., ripoff)
to the infamous play Shakespeare the Sadist by Wolfgang Bauer” (558). The Bauer
play takes place on the set of a porn film and is a blur of bizarreness. Vogel’s take on
Othello’s and Desdemona’s tale pays homage to it with its cinematic style, zipping along
at brake-neck speed.
“Desdemona was written in thirty cinematic takes” (558), we are told by Vogel.
The playwright’s note to directors instructs them to pick up the pace in a cinematic way.
“Change invisible camera angles, do jump cuts and repetitions, etc. There should be no
blackouts between scenes” (558).
Set up – “a spotlight in the dark, pinpointing a white handkerchief ” (559) –,
antagonist – “a second spotlight comes up on Emilia” (559) –, and foreshadowing –
“Emilia goes to the handkerchief, picks it up, stuffs the linen in her ample bodice, and
exits” (559) – compose the five-line visual prologue that sets the stylistic tone and pace
of the play.
The quick and brief style reflects the sexual prowess of the men involved with
the three female characters. A playful Scene 3 – one and a half page patter between
Emilia and Desdemona – divulges the following about Iago’a penis: “the wee-est pup
of th’ litter comes a’bornin’ in the world with as much” (564). The two-line long Scene
4 reveals plenty about Desdemona as she lies on her back fondling a phallic pick.
Whenever Desdemona is revealing a truth about herself, her dialogue goes from
the quick, short burst to mini-monologues of approximately twelve lines each. This
momentarily gives the reader/audience the opportunity to pause, think, and then POW,
get hit by the train again. An example of this occurs at the end of Scene 11. In twelve
lines, Desdemona tells Bianca why she pretended to be a prostitute. The truth is simply
wanderlust. “I close my eyes and in the dark of my mind – oh, how I travel!” (576).
Scene 12 zaps the reader right back from the adventures Desdemona has in her
mind to the predicament in which she has placed her body. Two rapid fire lines by Emilia
– “You’re leaving?!! Your husband?!!” (576) – coupled with “he’ll be after murdering
both of us…” (576) remind us what happened to Shakespeare’s Desdemona.
The six-page Scene 23 is one of the longest. Vogel provides Bianca, Emilia,
and Desdemona with longer lines and multiple-sentence, heart-wrenching dialogue.
The forward motion slows down as the piece reaches its turning point. The missing
handkerchief is found. The intrigue the three women have played with and against each
other is revealed. Emilia stole the handkerchief from Desdemona and gave it to Iago.
Iago gave it to Cassio. Cassio gave it as a love token to Bianca. Bianca accuses Desdemona
of sleeping with Cassio. In staccato phrases, Bianca puts the perceived deception on the
table: “You gulled yer ‘usband an’ you gulled me!” (598).
To bring the pace back to madcap, Scenes 24 and 25 are two and three lines
of action each. A look, a raised glass, and a second glass of wine tell more about the
internal discourse of Emilia and Desdemona than pages of dialogue.
The short-scene structure increases the tension at the end of the play. Three
scenes of one line of dialogue each bring the audience closer and closer to the potential
classic ending. Emilia, brushing Desdemona’s hair, counts from one to six in Scene
28, in Scene 29 from forty-five to forty-seven, and, in the last scene of the play, from
ninety-seven to ninety-nine. This represents the movement toward the ultimate death of
Desdemona by the jealous Othello.
Paula Vogel leads her readers on a quick and quirky journey through the classic
tale of Desdemona and Othello by constructing a cinematic conceit of fast movement,
short scenes, cuts, and rapid dialogue contrasted with subtly longer scenes to give them
pause to think.
Works Cited
Vogel, Paula. “Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief.” Plays for Actresses, Ed. Eric
Lane and Nina Shengold. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. 557-606
Novy, Marianne. “Saving Desdemona and/or Ourselves.” Transforming Shakespeare, Ed.
Marianne Novy. New York: Macmillan, 2000.
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