Royal Shakespeare Company’s Othello reimagines character as a Black lesbian
Sharon D Clarke as Othello (RSC)
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s upcoming production of Othello will reimagine the titular character as a Black lesbian, with Sharon D Clarke taking on the role.
The new production is set to open at the Swan Theatre on 12 February 2027, and will run for seven weeks until 3 April.
According to Variety, the play “relocates Shakespeare’s tragedy to a climate-threatened future and places a Black lesbian in the seat of military power at its centre”.
It follows “an unsanctioned marriage that becomes the fault line through which jealousy, suspicion and racial, sexual and class prejudice enter”.
Monique Touko will direct the show. Touko recently helmed the 2026 London run of Jocelyn Beoh’s beloved play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding at the Hammersmith Lyric.
Star Sharon D Clarke is a three-time Olivier Award-winning actress, having won for her roles in James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner, Caroline, or Change and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
Clarke is an out lesbian and is married to writer and director Susie McKenna.
According to the Guardian, the actress shared that the new RSC production will recall her role in Death of a Salesman, which recast the Jewish Loman family as Black.
“Everything was ramped up,” she said. “The American dream became so visceral because you could see the American dream and the impossibilities of it for that family. I’m hoping now through this lens with Othello, you will have to see things differently.”
Clarke continued: “She is predominantly in a male environment, so how does she deal with that on a day-to-day basis? How does she keep her dignity and her strength and her power and her womanhood on display?”
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