The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, 1988

Abstract

Diego, 1976]; the much-discussed Jones/Plummer Broadway Othello in 1982) and some deserving of wider notice than they got (Douglas Watson/Anthony Zerbe, San Diego, 1967; a fully mounted Off-Off Broadway production of Acts Three, Four, and Five in the summer of 1972 [Ted van Griethuysen directed, played Othello, and did the costumes; only four performances were scheduled]; Sanford Robbins's mid-seasonand thus almost overlooked-Ashland Othello in 1981; Richard E. T. White's production for the Berkeley festival in 1984). I had credentials! And yet no one took me seriously. The Colorado Springs community really has its heart in Shakespeare in the Park (for instance, the local Hilton provided Desdemona with free lodging for four weeks of rehearsal and the three-week run of the show), but no one I talked to would so much as consider the possibility that I was telling the truth when I compared their local Othello favorably to all the others I had seen. I said things that should have pleased them-did please them-and nobody would believe me. As I have already implied, I mean only to remark on a phenomenon. I see no remedy for it. Nor am I sure that remedy is wanted. There is nothing wrong with a little misplaced humility. I will conclude by telling you about an obliquely analogous phenomenon that I find indirectly illuminating. A former student of mine went through high school as a literary/theatrical type who was always second best in his class at doing literary/ theatrical things. He was vastly relieved a few years later when it turned out that not measuring up to Steven Spielberg, the boy he had never quite measured up to in high school, wasn't much of a disgrace.