Othello in Oregon

For years the literary conceit about the USA has been that it is a country comprised of good big-hearted people who would give you the shirt off their backs, take you in if you were hungry, poor and helpless, and even if not liking the man who'd marry their daughter would quickly grow in grace to accept that man as their own son even if only metaphorically.

The countervailing conceit is that the USA is made up of ill-informed, opinionated morons who do not hesitate to tell you that the weeds in front of your house can be killed overnight with hot water, tout the health benefits of taking daily 45 minute sunbath's because of the sun's ample natural supply of Vitamin D, and proclaim that the nipples of pregnant women are able to 'test' the saliva of their sucklings to ascertain exactly what nutrients they need.

The truth of these two conceits is always where the truth seems to be: somewhere in between two countervailing conceits.

Watching the three hour production of "Othello" the other night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland (with Shakespeare's original language intact but with the players in modern dress), which culminates in a murderous fury after the series of well planned innuendos, duplicity, and outright lies 'planted' by the villain Iago, offered me no chance of determining once and for all if either of these literary conceits about the USA are correct; but I could not help but note the grayness of the audience, the sourness of the countenance of so many of the audience members, as if they were unhappy, either about the direction the USA had taken or how their own lives had turned out, or both.

After thoughtful analysis, the day after Othello had strangled Desdemona, I surmised the audience was comprised mostly of retired high school English teachers, or outright literary critics, who were taught to think that everything, EVERYTHING, exists to be criticized.