A commanding persona and fanatical aficionado of the Bard, Cobb tells us how he came to switch from English major to burgeoning actor: “I saw Shakespeare … not in a book, but on a stage. (Courtesy "American Moor")īut first, as he waits, the actor will share some personal history. Keith Hamilton Cobb plays the role of a man auditioning for Othello. Mostly, however, he will cradle it with a casual, confident reverence. His only prop is that “Othello” script, which, in frustration with the omnipotent dweeb handling the audition, he will manhandle from time to time. (Bureau of Theatre) and Phoenix Theatre Ensemble.)Īs the audience enters the intimate, stripped-down playing space for the Kim Weild-directed production, Cobb is already onstage, studying a script, soundlessly mouthing words, as if waiting to be called on to perform. And judging by where Cobb is squinting into the darkness at this disembodied interlocutor, the director is conducting the audition from somewhere in the audience, which makes us seem slightly complicit. The only other voices in the play are those of the Bard’s Othello and an unseen director, both white and wet behind the ears, noncommittally voiced for this production by Matt Arnold. The actor trying out is Keith Hamilton Cobb. 12, takes the form of an actor’s audition for the role of Othello. "Speak of me as I am nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice," reads the "Othello" quote on the frontispiece of Keith Hamilton Cobb’s revelatory “American Moor.” Moreover, the actor/writer will have you know, no pointy-headed Anglophile, speaking from a position of privilege and power, is going to tell him, an African-American actor who has mulled and at least partially lived the role for a lifetime, what makes Shakespeare’s noble if dupable Moor tick.Ĭobb’s near-solo play, which is in its Boston premiere at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre through Aug. Keith Hamilton Cobb in his play, "American Moor." (Courtesy "American Moor") This article is more than 5 years old.
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