Becoming Othello: The Dilemma of Representing Blackness in Keith Hamilton Cobb’s American Moor

This paper examines the dilemma faced by a Black actor in representing Othello’s Blackness in Keith Hamilton Cobb’s American Moor. Cobb dramatizes an audition for Othello in which the actor’s seemingly internal monologue casts doubt on Shakespeare’s supposed universality and critiques the white monopoly over his works. A white director—unseen but audibly present somewhere in the audience—embodies a white supremacist perspective on race and power in interpreting Shakespeare. The Black actor realizes that his deep love for Shakespeare does not guarantee a place in the canon, as Shakespeare, upheld as a cultural icon of white supremacy and considered white property, is not fully available for (re)appropriation by non-white artists. Although the actor’s lived experience as a Black man in America enables him to deeply understand Othello, the white director—imposing his racial biases—insists on portraying Othello as a long-standing stereotypical caricature: a credulous, misogynistic murderer. In this way, the audition becomes a discursive space where the persistence of racial prejudice and cultural anxiety surrounding the reading and performance of Shakespeare is explored. By examining Cobb’s Black consciousness and his identification with Othello, this paper argues that Cobb dismantles the version of Shakespeare shaped by white supremacist cultural power and seeks to overcome Othello’s tragic fate of self-contempt and disgrace. Cobb asserts that Othello can become the authentic subject of his own story only when he is no longer seen through a racially biased lens. Only then can we truly say, we are Othello.