Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1998

Thesis Director

David Radavich

Abstract

Ngatish is a tragedy involving the lives of Othello's African family. My purpose in writing this play is to explore the shifts in roles between women and men in powerful and subservient positions. Therefore, I have created an historical 16th-century African setting for the play while the story-line explores the lives of Othello, his African family, and his first wife, Ngatish.

Through Ngatish, I want to answer some to the unknowns in Othello: how was such a notorious general so easily and readily duped by an obviously envious man as Iago: what were his secrets; his torments; what drove Othello to agree to murder? (In Cinthio's original Tale of The Moor, Othello agrees to Desdemona's murder, but Iago carries out the deed.)

I use the tragic drama as a means for expressing the relationships between the characters because of the parallel with Othello and my belief that a character like Othello would have more than one tragedy in his life. A realistic play, Ngatish attempts to portray relationships as they truly exist--all of us at one time or another being either the antagonist or the protagonist as we believe the situation warrants.

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