Othello: the role that entices and enrages actors of all skin colours
The RSC's new production of Shakespeare's tragedy has a black Iago in Lucian Msamati while Hugh Quarshie is battling with the lead role of the wise yet murderous Moor. But is the play even about race?"Of all the parts in the canon, perhaps Othello is the one which should most definitely not be played by a black actor," wrote the British-Ghanaian actor Hugh Quarshie in a lecture published in 1998. Doing so risked legi…