The Noh theater production of the Shakespeare play Othello is an interesting example of a contemporary avant-garde adaptation of Noh theater. Othello was originally written by William Shakespeare in the seventeenth century and has been performed countless times by acting companies around the world; however, the most interesting take on Othello might be by an avant-garde Japanese theater trope. The Noh theater version of Othello is not the story portrayed in the original Shakespeare text, but actually takes place after the end of the initial story in which Desdemona is wrongly accused of adultery and is killed by her husband Othello. This version of Othello follows the structure of traditional Noh plays under the subcategory of Mugen Noh, or …show more content…
In the first act of the play, the waki meets the disguised shite while the second act revolves around the shite telling their story. In the Noh version of Othello, the shite is Desdemona while the waki is a female monk who learns of the tragedy that takes place at the end of Desdemona's life. One difference between the contemporary Othello production and traditional Noh theater is that female actors are now involved. In traditional Noh theater, all roles, including those of women, were played by men. However, in this modern version of Noh, women serve as actors and the waki is a female monk. One similarity is that both traditional and contemporary Noh incorporate chanting and musical instruments to tell the story. There is also a bridge, or hashigakari, in Noh Othello that the actors use to make their stage entrance, which was a major component of traditional Noh theater used to symbolize crossing into different worlds. A major difference between traditional Noh and Noh Othello is that traditional Noh incorporates masks while the actors in Noh Othello wear heavy makeup designed to resemble these